Jury selection neared completion Tuesday in the murder trial of former DeKalb County police officer Robert "Chip" Olsen.
After 19 jurors were qualified on Day One of questioning, there was optimism that a jury would be seated by Wednesday. But the pace slowed considerably on Day Two, with several prospective jurors struck because of scheduling conflicts.
Before the jury is picked, 39 prospective jurors must be qualified to serve. This would allow both the prosecution and defense to exercise enough strikes to get a jury of 12 members plus three alternates. The process so far has determined who cannot serve because they are biased or have a medical or work-related hardship.
At the close of business Tuesday, at least 30 prospective jurors had been qualified.
Before court adjourned, Amanda Clark Palmer, one of Olsen’s defense attorneys, noted that the prosecution had agreed to allow four white male prospective jurors — whom the defense wants to stay on the panel — to be excused from duty because of travel plans.
A short while later, lead prosecutor Pete Johnson noted that the defense has moved to disqualify a number of African Americans who are on the panel.
Superior Court Judge LaTisha Dear Jackson allowed the male jurors to remain on the panel. She also did not grant all of the defense motions to strike prospective black jurors. She said race played no role in her decisions.
Olsen, 57, faces two counts of felony murder and other offenses. On March 9, 2015, he responded to a 911 call at a Chamblee apartment complex where Anthony Hill was walking around naked in the middle of the day.
Hill, a 27-year-old Afghanistan war veteran, was mentally ill and had stopped taking his medication. When he saw Olsen's squad car pull up a good distance away across the parking lot, Hill began running toward it. Olsen got out of his car, pulled out his handgun and twice yelled at Hill to stop. When Hill kept advancing, Olsen fired two shots that struck Hill. He died at the scene.
Olsen, who is white, is claiming self-defense on the grounds that he believed Hill, who was black, was about to attack him.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys have had just a few disagreements on which jurors should be seated and which ones should be disqualified on the grounds they are unable to be fair and impartial.
They differed Tuesday on Juror 32, a blogger who writes about the food she cooks and bakes.
Her husband, who is African American, had been the victim of racial profiling multiple times over the past few years, she said. On one occasion, when he went to work out at Planet Fitness, he forgot his gym bag, so he returned to his car in the parking lot to get it.
As he walked back, he was soon confronted by a police officer who suspected he’d been breaking into cars, the juror said. Thankfully, she added, his wallet was inside his gym bag, so he was allowed to go work out.
On another occasion, she said, her husband was at work inspecting a house when someone called 911 on the assumption he’d broken into it. Police soon arrived with their weapons drawn, and “it could have been the end of his life,” she said.
Juror 32 said she also had a problem with Hill’s death. “He was unarmed,” she said.
After the defense moved to exclude Juror 32, DeKalb prosecutor Lance Cross noted the woman had also said she could be fair. “She never said she was biased in this case,” he added. “She said she could follow the law.”
But Dear Jackson noted that Juror 32 had candidly said she was “generally not a fair person.” She granted the defense’s motion the disqualify Juror 32.
Throughout the selection process, prospective jurors were excused for both obvious and unusual reasons.
Juror 35, a foreman of a crane operation crew, said he tells his workers there are three sides to every story: “Your side, my side and the truth.”
But the DeKalb County native said he formed an opinion that Olsen was guilty when he first saw news reports of the shooting. “I don’t think my opinion will change,” he said.
He was dismissed for cause.
Juror 38, a pastor, said he’d been fasting for almost a week because he’d found out his wife of 20 years had been sleeping with another man. He said he was far too distracted and brokenhearted to concentrate on a murder trial.
He too was disqualified.
