No jurors tapped as selection begins in Dugan sentencing
After six hours of questioning, the first day of jury selection ended Tuesday in convicted killer Brian Dugan's sentencing hearing without a single member being tapped.
But, of the 14 potential panelists queried, three of them remain as possibilities. Lawyers will decide who - if any - among them will make the final cut as questioning resumes Wednesday morning.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Dugan, who pleaded guilty July 28 to murdering 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico Feb. 25, 1983 after he abducted the brown-eyed, dimpled child from her home near Naperville.
Dugan, 53, has been serving life prison sentences since 1985 for two other sex slayings - Donna Schnorr, 27, a Geneva nurse; and 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman of Somonauk. Jurors were told of the three murders.
Lawyers plan to pick 12 jurors and four alternates in a process that is expected to stretch across at least two weeks.
A lengthy sentencing hearing will follow.
Each side has 14 opportunities to strike a panelist. DuPage Circuit Judge George Bakalis has unlimited dismissals. He released nine Tuesday, either because of a financial hardship or when they pledged to automatically vote a particular way on the death penalty despite any evidence that may be presented to the contrary.
"I've read about it for years in the (news) paper," said one dismissed male juror. "I have a 10-year-old daughter and, in my opinion, the way I was raised, the punishment should fit the crime."
Prosecutors chose Tuesday to release two other jurors, including the father-in-law of former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan's son. The senior Ryan served as DuPage County state's attorney, beginning in 1984, through the wrongful prosecutions of three men, two of whom spent years on death row, before all were exonerated in Jeanine's murder.
The juror, a longtime Naperville man with prior knowledge of the legal saga, was dismissed after he told lawyers he was "not enthused" about the death penalty in this case, partly because of the cost to taxpayers.
The three remaining potential panelists include a retired Carol Stream retail broker, a Naperville grandmother of three who enjoys water aerobics and reading Robert B. Parker crime novels, and a single middle-aged female financial clerk whose two cousins are a Cook County judge and a Chicago police officer.
All three said they could keep an open mind.
It's especially important for attorneys to grill the potential panelists regarding capital punishment to ensure they're being truthful. The issue arose in the 2007 death penalty trial of Juan Luna, serving life in prison for the 1993 Brown's Chicken mass murder of seven people.
His jury spared his life in 2007 after a lone female panelist refused to impose the death penalty despite telling earlier telling lawyers during questioning that, "depending on the crime, I'd be in favor of it."
In an effort to save Brian Dugan's life, the defense team plans to argue he has accepted responsibility and shown remorse through his guilty plea. Furthermore, they argue, he offered to admit in 1985 to Jeanine's murder - in exchange for a life sentence - to help exonerate the wrongly convicted men. The prosecution, though, said Dugan was just trying to save his own life. They argue he is the death penalty poster boy.