The basement of the courthouse annex was packed full of prospective jurors this morning, two trials, one in JP Court with Fish Lips Pete Peterson and the one in 19th. which is the State of Texas v Seth Sutton.
One hundred registered voters were in the jury pool for Sutton and hardly any had NOT heard of the case or seen something about it.
There are new characters in this show, Judge Sparkman, Assistant Attorney General Patrick Sloane co-counsel is Assistant Attorney General Matthew Shawshan, and Seth Sutton is represented by Clint Broden of Dallas and Robert Swafford of Austin.
AG Sloane is a very professional guy, a lot of ease with the jurors, very matter of fact.
Mr. Broden seems to have lost a little weight since I saw him last during the TWIN PEAKS, and Robert Swafford of Austin, who wore a bow tie quite well, had a wide smile and clerks were everywhere taking notes and putting marks by the names and numbers of the prospective jurors.
Assistant AG Patrick Sloane read out some names of bars and asked the jury pool to lift their hands if they had gone to them, when it came to the SALTY DOG, nearly everyone in the place raised a hand and it seems that Friday’s must be big there. When given names from the witness list, hands went up randomly until the name Randy Crook came up and, once again, just about every hand in the place was waving.
Sloane went into great detail and questioned the jurors about different scenarios of “entrapment” or not entrapment, which, of course, is the crux of Sutton’s defense, that the undercover cop had an influence on him and indeed had gone “rogue”, defying his superiors from the PD. The longest list of witnesses was the cop witnesses, and, most interesting to me, was a rep from a Ft. Worth Task Force, wonder what the hell that’s about.
The trial will start in the morning, weeding through those who have relatives or friends that are law enforcement, those with the preconceived notions and those that say the magic words, “I need to speak to the Judge”, take up the rest of the time and we haven’t learned anything that we didn’t know about already.
I couldn’t help but sit there and look at Seth Sutton and feel really, really badly for him, all this, all this pain, really didn’t have to happen, to think he is facing 99 years is truly sobering and terrible. Of course, on the other hand, you can’t have people doing this crazy shit in your town either.
Harry will be there tomorrow in 19th.
One thing is for sure, I am very glad NOT to be in that jury pool.
H
Thanks for the update. It really is so sad. So much talent and such a faoolish risk.
I think his parents were in there. Holding hands, nice looking people, just traumatized. If he is found guilty etc. they’ll take him from the courtroom, I’ve seen it once before with a defendant out on bond, it’s indescribable. He’s 48, prime middle age crazy age, I have to say, I’m just so angry and so sad. This carries a 99 year sentence for crying out loud. The prosecutor is just a nice, professional, unemotional guy, I hope I hate the undercover cop BUT the statute for entrapment is NOT what the defense is describing. The prosecutor did a good job on explaining the Statute. Gulp.