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Despite possible appeals tied to flawed jury pool, prosecutors remain confident
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BATON ROUGE- This week, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that jury selection must start over for an accused cop killer.
The jury was being selected in Baton Rouge and his attorneys recognized that none of those who were subpoenaed were under the age of 26.
The problem was a software glitch in the system that sends out notices to prospective jurors. It is expected to be fixed by June, but until then jury trials in Baton Rouge have been postponed indefinitely.
"Once the software is fixed it will take some time and the jurors will have to be notified to come to court they are working on it now," EBR District Attorney Hillar Moore said.
Grover Cannon's attorneys were in the middle of jury selection when they realized the problem. Cannon is accused of killing St. Amant native, Thomas Lavalley in August of 2015.
Since the error was discovered, no formal appeals have been filed on behalf of defendants who were sent away to prison, but public defenders told us those are expected.
"When we were selecting the juries over the past years no one ever filed a motion to contest a jury panel or how jurors were selected," Moore said. "I anticipate people will file motions and appeals, but I don't think that will be successful."
In addition to excluding people under a certain age, people who moved to East Baton Rouge Parish were also not part of the jury pools. The exact cost to the taxpayers over this glitch is still being calculated.
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