Jury Selection in Haun Trial Passes Halfway Mark

Jury selection in the murder trial of Diana Haun passed a halfway mark Monday as Superior Court Judge Frederick A. Jones concluded his questioning of the first of two panels of prospective jurors.

The judge then turned to a series of pretrial motions, granting a request by prosecutors to take jurors, once the trial gets underway, on a half-day field trip to the scene of the kidnapping and murder that Haun is accused of committing.

Jurors will also be allowed to see two dressed-up mannequins during the prosecution’s case--one depicting the stabbed and beaten Sherri Dally and the other depicting her blond-wigged assailant, the judge ruled.

Jones plans to take up a series of motions dealing with evidence in the case in his Ventura courtroom this week before addressing a second panel of jury candidates in Santa Barbara on Thursday.

Jones had hoped 18 Santa Barbara residents--a dozen jurors and six alternates--could be seated from the 250-person panel summoned two weeks ago.

But after excusing a large portion of the group for financial and personal hardships, the judge decided to call a second group to ensure enough jurors.

As of Monday, only 40 prospective panelists remained from the first group summoned June 30--not enough to withstand the 20 peremptory challenges allowed to both the prosecution and the defense.

As a result, the judge and attorneys will begin what amounts to Round 2 of jury selection Thursday when the judge addresses a new group of potential panelists.

Like the first panel, jury candidates will be asked to complete detailed questionnaires probing their knowledge of the much-publicized Ventura County case, their views on capital punishment and their attitudes toward law enforcement.

On Monday, they will be called into court in small groups to explain any personal or financial hardships that would prevent them from serving on the case. If they pass the hardship stage, jury candidates will be asked to return for additional interviews on their views on the death penalty.

Haun is charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy for allegedly planning and carrying out the May 1996 slaying of Sherri Renee Dally. The 35-year-old homemaker was married to Michael Dally, who had been having an extramarital affair with Haun for about two years.

Michael Dally is also charged in connection with the slaying, but he will not stand trial until Haun’s case concludes. Both could face execution if convicted.

Although the trials will be held in Ventura, which is more convenient for about 200 local witnesses, Jones decided a Santa Barbara jury should decide Dally and Haun’s fate because of heavy pretrial publicity in Ventura County.

After concluding his final interviews Monday morning in Santa Barbara, Jones and the attorneys returned to Ventura County Superior Court to discuss motions, including the prosecution’s request to let the jury see locations related to the slaying.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth told Jones that a “jury view” would help the panel understand what happened to Sherri Dally in terms of time, location and sequence of events.

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But Deputy Public Defender Neil B. Quinn opposed taking the jury any place other than the Target parking lot where Sherri Dally was last seen and the steep ravine where her remains were discovered about a month later.

He adamantly opposed allowing the jury to see the inside of Sherri and Michael Dally’s home, one of the stops proposed by the prosecution.

“I just don’t believe trotting the jurors through the victim’s home is going to help,” Quinn argued.

Jones agreed in part. Although he decided a tour should take place, he stopped short of allowing jurors to enter the Dally home.

“I believe that what the district attorney proposes should occur in large part,” he said. “If the case were tried to me in a court trial, I know I would want to conduct the same view that is being suggested to help me with the facts.”

That viewing will include a visit to the Target parking lot where Dally was allegedly kidnapped by a disguised Haun, the ravine off La Canada Road where her remains were found by a search party, and the Oxnard grocery store where Haun and Michael Dally once worked.

Jurors will get to drive by Haun’s Port Hueneme residence, the Dallys’ Ventura home and various stores and gas stations in Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo where prosecutors say Haun stopped after the killing.

It was not discussed in court Monday whether Haun would be participating in the jury’s tour, and her attorneys said they could not discuss the subject because of a gag order in the case.

Although legal experts said jury tours are not uncommon, particularly in capital murder cases, an outing with so many locations is unique.

“This isn’t unprecedented, but it is a bit unusual,” said Laurie Levenson, associate dean of Loyola Law School and a former federal prosecutor.

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Jury views are typically approached with an abundance of caution, Levenson explained. What a juror sees and hears can be controlled inside a courtroom, but that changes once the case ventures beyond the confines of the courthouse walls.

“You lose control over what the jurors are looking at,” she said. Therefore, judges typically are very strict when instructing jurors about what evidence they can consider when viewing a scene, she said.

In Ventura County, juries on two recent capital murder cases were allowed to take field trips to the crime scene.

Last year, the jurors for Daniel Allan Tuffree, the former schoolteacher convicted of killing a Simi Valley police officer, were allowed to tour his bullet-riddled house where a gun battle with authorities broke out in August 1995.

And the jury in the trial of convicted murderer Mark Scott Thornton was allowed to see the rugged spot in a grassy canyon where the Thousand Oaks man fatally shot Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan in the back of the head. Jurors also visited the pet store where O’Sullivan was kidnapped in 1993.