Man serving life wins new trial in ’13 slaying

Steps to assure Demetrius Hopkins faced an impartial jury not taken, court rules.

A 28-year-old Palm Beach County man serving a life sentence for first-degree murder won a new trial Wednesday, when a Florida appeals court ruled that the judge in his case didn’t take the steps necessary to assure he faced an impartial jury.

Demetrius Hopkins, who was convicted in October 2015 for the 2013 fatal shooting of Jean Nesca at Brian Boru’s Irish Pub and Sports Bar on Lake Worth Road, wasn’t given the chance to adequately quiz potential jurors before his trial, the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled.

While judges can put time limits on jury questioning, in Hopkins’ case the strict time limit prevented his attorney from questioning all of the prospective jurors, Judge Carole Taylor wrote for the three-judge appellate panel. Palm Beach County Judge Marni Bryson allowed attorneys only 3.6 minutes to question each potential juror.

“The trial court abused its discretion,” Taylor said.

In addition, Bryson should have given Hopkins’ attorney extra challenges to remove two potential jurors from the panel when they said they would be suspicious of Hopkins if he didn’t testify in his own defense, the West Palm Beach-based appeals court wrote.

Because Bryson wouldn’t let Hopkin’s attorney remove those two people for cause, the lawyer had to use another type of challenge known as a peremptory challenge to remove them.

That, in turn, didn’t leave him with enough peremptory challenges to remove another woman whom he wanted to cut because she was a bartender, like a critical prosecution witness. The female bartender wound up serving on the jury.

Defendants have a constitutional right not to testify and jurors are required not to hold it against them.

“When there is a reasonable doubt about the ability of a juror to decide the case fairly and impartially, the juror should be excused,” Taylor wrote.

Hopkins, who previously served a five-year sentence for stabbing a man during a fight in Port St. Lucie, was found guilty of murder for shooting Nesca, 21, of Greenacres, during a fight at the bar west of Lake Worth. Nesca was lying on the floor when Hopkins shot him in the eye, witnesses told investigators.