Only 120 show up for Paniagua jury selection
Additional potential jurors brought from civil trial being held simultaneously to round out jury pool
By BARRY HALVORSON bhalvorson@journal-spectator.com

A little extra insurance there would be a jury this time was introduced to the jury pool Monday for the felony murder trial of Guillermo Paniagua Paniagua.

While a total of 325 jury notices were sent out, only 120 people arrived at the Wharton County Civic Center for the selection process Monday. The building was chosen because of the extra heavy call, which under normal circumstances is around 250 to 275 people.

After 30 people either used their legal exemptions or were excused by the judge, the pool was knocked down to 90. Legal exemptions include over the age of 70, being caregiver to a person age 10 or under, and a felony conviction or any conviction for a theft offense.

To make up the difference, the remainder of a jury pool for a civil trial being held in the 329th District Court by Judge Randy Clapp, was sent over to the Civic Center and the voir dire process, the questioning of potential jurors, was started.

"We finished a little after 6 p.m.," District Attorney spokesperson Becky Ivy said. "Actually, it went pretty smoothly once we got the final pool established after the addition from Judge Clapp's court bumped the numbers up over 100."

Assistant District Attorney Gordon Dudley said the attorneys went through 47 names before the final number of 13 ... 12 jurors and an alternate ... was selected. But he added the extra numbers were important.

"This was a different situation in that a lot of the people at the end of the list were striking themselves because of prior opinions," he said.

Dudley added that once the additional names had been added to the jury pool, they had been randomly sorted into a selection order so he wasn't sure if jurors came from the original pool or from those brought over from Clapp's courtroom.

Paniagua's trial was initially set for Oct. 29, but the jury pool brought in went bust. Of the 250 called for that jury, only 71 showed up and after exemptions and court approved excuses, only 26 candidates were left, not enough to seat a jury.

Following the jury going bust, defense attorneys Richard Manske of El Campo and David Kiatta of Houston requested a change of venue on the basis of pre-trial publicity, which they attributed to the jury selection problems. After initially granting the venue motion, visiting judge Daniel Sklar, who is hearing the case, reversed his decision and allowed the trial to remain in Wharton following a hearing held Dec. 18.