Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dippolito wants new jurors
Palm jury pool biased on murder-for-hire case, attorneys argue
Before the second day of jury selection for Dalia Dippolito’s retrial, her attorneys on Friday said they want to move the 2009 murder-for-hire case out of Palm Beach County or bring in jurors from elsewhere because of concerns that the local jury pool is too biased.
Finding jurors who have not heard about Dippolito proved to be difficult, as well over half of the 196 prospective jurors said they know Dippolito is accused of trying to have her husband killed.
By the end of the day Friday, only 70 potential jurors were left in the pool to be questioned Monday by the prosecutors and defense attorneys about their ability to be fair and impartial.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley said he would rule on the defense’s change-of-venue request after the defense filed it in writing.
“We are asking jurors to be brought in from other counties, similar to what was done in the Casey Anthony case,” attorney Brian Claypool told reporters, adding that he didn’t request it earlier because he wanted to give jury selection a chance in Palm Beach County.
Jurors for the Anthony murder trial in 2011 were selected in Clearwater and taken to Orlando for her trial, which ended in an acquittal.
Included among the 126 people released from the Dippolito jury pool were those who swore they had extreme hardships, such as picking up young children after school and medical issues, that prevented jury service.
The lawyers need six jurors plus two alternates for the trial.
One of the prospective jurors on Friday told Kelley he “wouldn’t be any value” after watching TV news reports about the case. “Justice was served,” the potential juror said, referring to Dippolito’s 2011 conviction and sentence to 20 years in prison that was later overturned.
An appeals court ruled that the Boynton Beach woman didn’t get a fair trial because the jury pool was tainted after the panel heard a prejudicial allegation against her.
Moving the trial elsewhere in Florida will “ensure that Dippolito receives a fair and impartial jury panel,” Claypool, who is also a legal news analyst for national television programs, wrote Friday on Twitter.
Late Thursday, Claypool told reporters he was pleased with the first day of jury selection and confident the process would result in a fair jury for Dippolito, 34.
“Our Judge is doing a great job of filtering biased jurors,” Claypool, from Pasedena, Calif., tweeted.
But on Friday morning, Claypool and defense attorney Greg Rosenfeld of West Palm Beach announced that after “sleeping on it,” they concluded that either the trial must be moved or jurors be brought to West Palm Beach.
There are too many “biased jurors and undue negative publicity about the case” in Palm Beach County, Claypool said.
After Dippolito’s August 2009 arrest, the case made international headlines and featured viral videos, including footage of police officers approaching her at a staged, fake murder scene.
She remains charged with solicitation to commit first-degree murder with a firearm.
Prosecutors Craig Williams and Laura Laurie say she hired a Boynton Beach police officer posing as a hit man to kill her thennewlywed husband.
Dippolito’s lawyers say her defense will show she was the victim of police entrapment.
“Looking forward to holding law enforcement accountable for breaking the rules and using my client as a pawn to manufacture good television,” Claypool wrote on Twitter.
If the judge continues his plans for a jury to be chosen Monday, the trial is expected to run five or six days.
The last time a trial in Palm Beach County featured jurors picked from another area was in October 2014 for the second DUI manslaughter trial of Wellington polo club founder John Goodman. A panel was selected in Tampa and then sequestered for about three weeks in West Palm Beach.