Murder defendant thrown out of own trial

After disrupting the second day of jury selection, accused police killer Eric DeShann Floyd will watching the rest of his trial from his cell via closed-circuit television.

"You have disrupted these proceeding for two days. Your behavior is pure contempt of court," Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes told Floyd during an in-court confrontation late this afternoon.

Floyd, 35, on trial with Levon T. Warner, 41, in the 2008 shooting of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, told Hughes that he would continue to disrupt jury selection until she agreed to replace his court-appointed defense lawyers.

"If you continue to disrupt this proceeding, we will continue this trial and you will watch it by closed circuit television," Hughes warned.

"I can do that now, there's no need to wait," Floyd retorted.

And he was gone, taken back to holding cells by sheriff's deputies.

The judge told prosecution and defense attorneys that she was dismissing 16 prospective jurors who waited all afternoon while they were trying to decide how to handle Floyd's outbursts.

Floyd, of North Philadelphia and Warner, of West Philadelphia, are on trial for their lives, accused of taking part in a May 3, 2008 bank robbery and chase that ended in Port Richmond with the pursuing Liczbinski's death.

Howard Cain, 33, the alleged leader of the group who police say shot the 12-year-veteran officer, was killed by police after the three split up and he fled on foot.

But the District Attorney's office will seek the death penalty if Floyd and Warner are convicted of first-degree murder. Conroy has argued that Cain's accomplices knew about or handled the high-power rifle used to shoot Liczbinski and so are equally culpable in his death.