Libby Trial: 36 Jurors
With the passing of six of eight potential jurors this morning into the next round, the pool of jurors not struck for cause has reached the magic number of 36.
The prosecution has twelve peremptory challenges and the defense eight. If all those are used, the jury will be down to the minimum 16 needed–twelve jurors and four alternates.
They’re continuing on, however, because there are apparently some sort of doubts about two of those picked last week and they could yet be struck for cause.
UPDATE: The addition of a 37th was made as a precaution. The judge said things went much faster this morning than anticipated and the rest of the jury was instructed not to return until 3, so peremptory challenges will not begin until then.
There’s now a 10 minute recess. It’s not clear yet what will happen between now and 3.
It probably went faster today because both sides have a good idea of which members of the pool they intend to move to strike peremptorily and both felt they had enough leeway.