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del.icio.us3 jurors picked in murder trial
Ted Burnett is charged in the death of 14-year-old Chelsea Brooks.
BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle
Prosecutor Marc Bennett pointed at Ted Burnett and asked the woman in the jury box if she could impose the death penalty.
"We're not talking hypotheticals, what we're asking is... if you could consider giving this man, sitting here in the white shirt, death?" Bennett said.
"It would be difficult," she said. "But I could consider it."
That is the question facing potential jurors in Burnett's capital murder trial, which began Monday.
From a pool of 500 possible jurors, 12 will be chosen to decide Burnett's case.
By the end of the first day, only three people had been selected and three dismissed.
Sedgwick County District Judge Ben Burgess excused one man whosaid he had already determined that Burnett was guilty in the death of Chelsea Brooks, 14.
Another man and a woman were excused because they said they could not consider a death sentence, under any circumstances.
Brooks was nine months pregnant when she disappeared on June 9, 2006. Her body was found in a Butler County wheat field nearly a week later.
Prosecutors say Burnett, 51, strangled Brooks for $500 offered by Elgin Robinson, 20, the father of her unborn child.
Deputy District Attorney Kevin O'Connor spent nearly an hour Monday probing whether jurors could weigh testimony from another participant in the case.
The prosecution's case is built around Everett Gentry, who reached a plea agreement. Gentry has said he helped set up a murder-for-hire between Robinson and Burnett. He said he drove while Burnett strangled Brooks in the car. Gentry was 17 at the time and is not eligible for the death penalty.
Burnett and Robinson could face the death penalty, if convicted. Robinson is set for trial in September.
"In a case this severe, I don't know if I could take the word of someone who helped perpetuate it," one woman said. "I might want some physical evidence."
But there may not be such evidence, O'Connor said.
He also quizzed people about whether they watched crime shows on television, such as "CSI." He said prosecutors are concerned about a "CSI effect" where jurors expect sophisticated, and sometimes nonexistent, evidence based on what they see on TV.
In this early round, potential jurors may be dismissed for a good cause, such as personal biasesandtransportation problems.
Lawyers must pass 42 people before they can select the final 12 jurors and two alternates. Later, jurors may be dismissed for any reason except for race, gender and other classes protected by law.
"This isn't like a softball game, where we say we want this person, and they say they want that person," Bennett explained to one juror. "We kind of deselect people, and the jury is the ones who are left."
Questioning continues today. Jury selection is expected to last a week.
Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or rsylvester@wichitaeagle.com.
