Lawyers to refine questions to ask jury

Consensus sought ahead of selection in Ramos’ trial for Capital Gazette shooting

With less than a month remaining before the scheduled start of the Capital Gazette mass shooting trial, prosecutors and defense attorneys will convene again Friday to discuss questions they’ll ask prospective jurors and whether the defense can talk about mental health in their opening argument.

The attorneys and Anne Arundel Circuit Court Judge Laura Ripken — who is presiding over the trial of the man charged with fatally shooting Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters — will seek a consensus about what questions she reads aloud to prospective jurors at the next phase of the jury selection. The scope and procedure of the process has been called unprecedented by experienced local attorneys.

In the first step, Ripken crafted a written questionnaire intended to narrow the pool of jurors eligible for the trial of Jarrod Ramos, 38. The Laurel man faces five counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, and six counts of first-degree assault among other charges. At least 300 prospective jurors came to the county courthouse in Annapolis Sept. 27 to complete the questionnaire.

Ripken and the attorneys are expected to pare down the questions the judge will read to 50 jurors at a time over three days starting Oct. 30. Similar to a normal jury selection process, Ripken will read questions to the group of jurors, who will be asked to stand and say their juror number if they answer affirmatively. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will take notes on the responses.

In common jury selection, attorneys crowd around the bench and question those jurors who answered “yes” to certain questions one at a time under the privacy of white noise emanating from court speakers.

For Ramos’ trial, he, his public defenders, prosecutors and Ripken will go to a smaller courtroom and call those jurors individually to ask follow up questions.

The judge and attorneys will eliminate prospective jurors based on their responses until they’ve got 100 eligible jurors, at which point both sides will move back to the larger courtroom and select the jury panel of 12 and a number of alternates yet to be set.

The attorneys and Ripken will be looking for jurors who can set aside what they’ve learned about the case in the media and decide the trial based exclusively on what’s presented in court. The trial is expected to last three weeks.

Ramos pleaded not guilty and not criminally responsible — Maryland’s version of the insanity defense — to all 23 counts. Ripken granted his request to split the trial into two segments: the first to determine whether he’s guilty and, in the case that he’s found guilty, a second portion to determine whether he meets Maryland’s narrow legal insanity definition.

Ripken still hasn’t ruled on the prosecutors’ motion requesting she prohibit the defense from introducing mental health evidence at the guilt-innocence phase of the trial.

At the last hearing, prosecutors told the judge both parties could argue the motion in 15 minutes. While the parties agree that the law is clear that mental health evidence could be introduced, it’s silent on opening arguments, Ramos’ public defenders said.

Katy O’Donnell, one of Ramos’ attorneys, said it’s unclear whether there will be one opening argument at the guilt-innocence phase and another if the trial reaches the insanity phase, or if there would just be one at the beginning of the trial. If Ramos is found guilty, the criminal responsibility phase will follow immediately.

She suggested the parties may disagree and said she was unaware of any other cases that could offer precedent.

Ripken also tabled Ramos’ attorneys’ request that she penalize prosecutors after they allegedly violated pretrial evidence sharing procedure — a claim State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess dismissed as baseless.

O’Donnell said Oct. 1, just as Ripken was prepared to rule, that a pile of documents the defense received via a recently fulfilled subpoena may result in more claims of wrongdoing. As such, Ripken set a deadline that passed Tuesday for the defense to augment its request for sanctions but did not say when she would rule.

It’s unclear if Ripken will address the motion Friday.