Potential Thornton Panel Queried Over Opinions : Court: Death penalty will be sought in murder case. Lawyers assay the 125 candidates’ views on capital punishment.

Jury selection in the death-penalty trial of accused Thousand Oaks murderer Mark Scott Thornton began a critical phase Monday as lawyers started weeding out potential jurors with too much knowledge about the high-profile case and fixed attitudes on capital punishment.

The jurors who came to the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath were among 125 people who survived the first phase of jury selection last week.

Thornton is accused of slaying of Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan in September, 1993, during a carjacking.

All the potential jurors still under consideration to hear the case are being called to McGrath’s courtroom individually over the next three weeks to explain answers they gave on a questionnaire completed about the Thornton case.

Only six of the 10 jurors who showed up for appointments with prosecutors and defense attorneys in open court Monday made it through the day.

Two were dismissed either because of their knowledge of the case or their views on capital punishment, lawyers said. Two others were let go because they had discovered since last week that their employers would not pay them if they served during the expected four-month trial.

The six who remained and were questioned gave varying answers on how they feel about the Thornton prosecution and capital punishment.

A Santa Paula teacher said she does not favor the death penalty in most circumstances. A Thousand Oaks nurse said she favors it. And a retired Ventura principal said it depends on the crime.

Questionnaires of the kind being used in the Thornton case are generally used to gauge attitudes in cases involving the death penalty and other serious crimes. They are also normally released to the public and the press. But, in keeping with a series of rulings denying public access to key court documents in the Thornton case, McGrath has ordered the questionnaires off-limits to everyone except the litigants in the case.

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Responding to a motion by The Times to allow the public to inspect copies of the questionnaire, McGrath said Monday that he would rule Friday on the matter.

Thornton is accused of kidnaping and murdering O’Sullivan, the 34-year-old mother of a 5-year-old son. Police say the victim was abducted in Thousand Oaks Sept. 14, 1993, and taken to the Los Angeles County side of the Santa Monica Mountains, where she was shot twice in the back and once in the chest.

Authorities say O’Sullivan was killed so her attacker could steal her 1991 Ford Explorer.

Many of the jurors questioned on Monday were vague as to their view of what the punishment should be for Thornton if he is convicted of the crime. Defense attorneys tried to elicit specific answers, but few would give them.

One exception, however, was Renee Galati, the Thousand Oaks nurse.

She said she saw flyers announcing O’Sullivan’s disappearance last year and took part in a 12-day search for the woman’s body. A nurse like the victim, Galati said she usually considers herself open-minded, but might have problems being impartial on Thornton’s jury.

She also said she has read a lot about the case in local newspapers but did not think that would color her opinion as much as her similarities to O’Sullivan. Galati, who did not know O’Sullivan, said she still would try to be fair to the defendant, if she is not excluded from jury service in the case.

“I would base my evidence on what I learned here, and not what I read in the newspaper,” the 38-year-old woman said.

James Malony, the retired Juanamaria Elementary School principal, said capital punishment is appropriate “for mass murderers and that type of thing.” He declined to say whether it was appropriate in a case such as Thornton’s.

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The attorneys also wanted to know if the jurors could send someone diagnosed as having a attention deficit disorder to the gas chamber. Thornton’s lawyers are expected to make that claim on behalf of their client.

Sandra Crocket, a special-education teacher at Isbell Middle School in Santa Paula, said she feels that an attention disorder can affect a person’s ability to learn but not to distinguish right from wrong.

“I think he is capable of knowing right from wrong,” said Crocket, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade classes. “I think my students in junior high school know right from wrong.”