Dippolito judge considers tossing jury pool for retrial
The judge in Dalia Dippolito’s murder solicitation retrial will consider overnight whether to throw out a pool of about 55 remaining potential jurors after fresh claims that jurors commented among themselves about the case and one had lunch with a court observer who has attended multiple pretrial hearings.
Ca l l i n g h e r c a s e “a p o s t e r child case” for why criminal trials should be moved out of the area in high-publicity cases, Dalia Dippolito’s attorneys tried unsuccessfully Monday to persuade Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley to stop jury selection in the 2009 alleged caught-on-camera murder solicitation case.
The judge did, however, say that he did want to think about whether the panel could survive the new jury-tainting allegations. This comes after more than twothirds of an initial panel of 200 prospective jurors told the judge they’d already heard about the case and at least two previously unsuccessful attempts from Dippolito’s team since Thursday to get the case moved out of Palm Beach County.
“I want to know if I’m like the little boy with my finger in the dike trying to hold back the flood. I’m not saying that I am, but I want to internalize that a little bit and think about the ramifications,” Kelley told attorneys in the case late Monday.
If the jury survives the venue change motion, and attorneys are able to glean a pool of six jurors and several alternates today, opening statements could begin as early as this afternoon.
Dippolito, 34, is accused of ordering an undercover Boynton Beach police officer she thought was a hitman to kill her then-husband, Michael, in a case that made international headlines.
A first jury convicted her, and she was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but the case was later overturned on appeal.
Publicity issues have hobbled the jury selection process since