LAWRENCEVILLE—It’s been a kind of strange morning for jury selection in the First Degree Murder trial of Tyler McQueen.
McQueen, 21, is the man accused of killing Bob Westall, 78, in the late-night hours of Saturday, March 24, 2012. McQueen is said by authorities to have done the deed at the behest of Westall’s niece, Helen Marie Westall (who is charged with multiple counts of Solicitation to Commit Murder for Hire in the case).
Tyler McQueen’s first mugshot
The jury selection started off typically this morning, with a selection of 14 chosen to sit through voir dire (questioning from the attorneys in the case: for the state, Michael Vujovich of the state’s Special Prosecutor’s office, and Lawrence County State’s Attorney Chris Quick, and for the defense, Matt Vaughn of Fairfield) as is usually the case, with probing questions about whether a person had been through a crime before, had a good or bad opinion of the outcome, had family who had been through such a thing, friends or family in law enforcement, etc.
However, things quickly went downhill when a couple of the potential jurors began issuing their opinions on whether or not they had preconceived notions about McQueen’s guilt or innocence. It started with two gentlemen, and rapidly spread to just about every potential juror on the panel. It actually went as far as to impact the potentials’ presumption of innocence, with many stating openly that they couldn’t hold on to the presumption of innocence (“innocent until proven guilty” as per the Fifth Amendment), stating that they could not or would not be able to keep the presumption through the trial.
This excluded many right off the bat. Through more questioning, it was discovered that several on the panel had known Westall personally and had hard feelings about the case, thus ruling out at least six of the panel definitively. When it was all said and done, only two of the 14 were kept…and the selection was moved to the small courtroom without explanation. And subsequent potential jurors were brought in one by one, not in a group. Whether this was in an effort to avoid a “group think” mentality, as it appeared was going on in the first panel, remains unknown at this time. The two that the court had time to move through the process between 11:30 and lunch were both kept. So four of 14 have been chosen. We could be here doing this until Wednesday…which is what happened a year ago this week in Richland County with the jury trial of Brandon Jenkins.
We reconvene at 1:20, but there’s no telling how late this will go on. Be watching for further updates, and a likely podcast tonight to familiarize you with the case if you don’t already know about it.