Jury seated for Joseph Zieler’s murder trial

A jury has been seated in the trial of a man accused of murdering a child and her babysitter more than 30 years ago. But before that could happen, the defense tried to hit the reset button on the jury selection process.

The Judge said he had no reason to dismiss the prospective jurors. Fundamentally the Judge didn’t buy the argument made by the defense, who said there weren’t enough minorities in the jury pool. And Joseph Zieler’s lawyers fear that’s bad news for their client.

Zieler’s attorneys told WINK News their client pays attention to everything.

“Mr. Zeiler has taken an interest in his case further than any client I’ve had in 41 years,” Zieler’s attorney Kevin Shirley said.

“He’s been sitting in jail for several years with nothing to do day after day other than pour over 30,000 pages of material. And so because he has all this time on his hands, he can focus on particular aspects,” Shirley said.

Lee Hollander told WINK News he believes minority jurors would be less likely to recommend death for Zieler if convicted. But the Judge said there is no reason to dismiss the jury pool. As it stands, the jury of 12 and four alternates consists of two minorities. Hollander noted that could be grounds for an appeal later.

“If it gets up to the Supreme Court, and they agree with me, yes, that could reverse the case. So we’ll have to see what happens,” Hollander said.

Zieler’s attorneys told WINK News it is possible that Zieler could take the stand in his own defense. Opening statements are set for Tuesday morning.