Kraft Murder Case Means a Year in the Life of a Juror

The sign in the jury room at the Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana is four feet tall with black letters the size of goose eggs: “Any jurors who may be able to serve as potential jurors on a case of one year’s duration” please sign up at the desk.

What the sign does not say is that it’s the Randy Steven Kraft case, the biggest murder trial in the county’s history.

Court administrators do not often ask for volunteers. But the Kraft case is different. Court officials want to fatten their pool of prospective jurors, even if it means asking jurors from past cases to volunteer.

Kraft is charged with the murders of 16 young men--most between the ages of 18 and 25. The first step in his trial is scheduled for Tuesday, when the first batch of prospective jurors has been ordered to appear in court.

Pretrial Publicity

Kraft’s attorneys, who are still trying to win a change of venue for their client, say they are concerned about whether Orange County has enough people whose opinions have not already been tainted by pretrial publicity about Kraft. Also, they worry that with a case this long, most working people would have to claim a hardship, leaving only retired people to man the jury.

At the request of Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin, who is the Kraft trial judge, courthouse administrators already have summoned 15,000 extra people for jury duty this month, in addition to the 13,000 monthly number summoned for the rest of the entire superior and municipal court system.

This is the first time Orange County has ever had to more than double its jury summonses for a single case, said Court Administrator Alan Slater.

“We won’t have all those people coming at once, but we’re going to keep pretty busy,” Slater said. “We hope we can have them come and go in waves and keep it at a steady pace.”

So many people will be showing up for jury duty that court administrators had to get approval from the Board of Supervisors last week to reserve parking spaces at Rancho Santiago College for them. They will be bused the mile to the courthouse.

The goal is to find 20 jurors for the Kraft case--12 regular jurors and eight alternates. An alternate sits through the trial and is moved up to the regular jury only if a juror has to drop out of the proceedings. Slater already has squeezed extra chairs into the jury box for four alternates. Four others will sit in front of, and a step below, the jury box.

“I think it’s going to be difficult, no matter how many people are called,” said Kraft attorney James G. Merwin. “We’re just going to have to see how this goes.”

Kraft’s prosecutors have maintained all along, however, that the court will have little trouble seating the necessary number of fair jurors.

“We’ve had other high-profile cases in this county, and we’ve always been able to select a jury,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. James P. Cloninger. “Mr. Kraft’s case will be no different.”

Today, in the last of the pretrial motions in the Kraft case, one issue to be dealt with is the defense’s request that the jurors’ pay be boosted. Kraft’s attorneys believe it would cut back the number of prospective jurors who will be unable to serve because of economic hardship.

But the county counsel’s office opposes the move, claiming that the judge does not have the authority to boost jurors’ pay.

Jurors now receive $5 a day plus one-way expenses of 15 cents a mile. The Kraft lawyers want that raised to $50 a day plus expenses to and from the courthouse.

“We think the judge does have the authority,” Merwin said. “It would certainly go a long way in increasing the number of people who realistically could sit on a case this long.”

Court Administrator Slater says he has no position on the defense’s motion and that he is there to serve the judge’s wishes. But Slater pointed out that “jury duty is recognized as a significant public service, and how much you will be paid should not be a major consideration.”

But Slater added: “There’s no question that the length of the trial is one of the biggest problems in jury selection. On longer cases, some people simply cannot stay away from their jobs that long without creating a hardship for their families.” The 28,000 summoned for jury duty this month have no idea which cases they will be assigned to when they show up for court. They will all be placed in the system together.

“Just because you are told to go to Rancho Santiago to park your car doesn’t mean you’re going to the Kraft case,” Slater said.

The only jurors who will be designated specifically for interviews for the Kraft case will be those who signed up in the jury room, saying they could stay on for a yearlong case.

But only 20 people signed up.

“We’ve had people call up here and ask if they can volunteer for the Kraft trial,” said one assistant in the jury room. “We want jurors, but we can’t take them that way.”

The jury pool is chosen by a computerized random selection from the Department of Motor Vehicle records and the county’s voter registry.

The 20 volunteers will be screened in court Tuesday. The first batch from the regular jury pools will be brought in Thursday, probably about 125 to 150 at a time, Slater said.

The first screening will be just to find out which people will not have to be excused because of economic hardship related to the length of the case.

Kraft attorneys estimate it may be three weeks before the trial reaches individual voir dire--when attorneys and the judge ask a prospective juror his or her views on the death penalty.

Kraft is the biggest criminal case the county has ever seen by any measuring stick: No murder case has involved more victims. No major case has taken so long--five years--to come to trial. And most officials agree that the Kraft case is probably the most expensive in county history.

Kraft has three lawyers who are paid with public funds. Records of their salaries and of expenses for investigators, a pathologist, a battery of criminalists, a trial expert and other various experts are sealed by court order. But more than two years ago, prosecutors estimated the Kraft defense costs at $2 million up to that point.

The district attorney’s office added seven people to its staff, including lawyers, investigators and other assistants, because of the drain on its personnel attributed to the Kraft case.

Slater has added two people to his staff to help handle the load for the Kraft trial, and other staff members will have to work overtime, he said.

“We called Los Angeles and other counties to see how they handled major cases,” Slater said. “It’s going to be hectic until a jury is selected. But we think we’re ready.”