JURY SELECTION BEGINS IN PENNSYLVANIA FEDERAL HATE CRIME TRIAL

After last year’s travesty of a verdict clearing two boys of beating a Mexican national to death in Shenadoah, PA, the jury handing down a guilty verdict of simple assault for the crime, everyone that was following the case (save for the local anti-immigration crowd) blew their top. Today was the first day that Brandon J. Piekarsky (green shirt) and Derrick M. Donchak (blue shirt) appeared in court for their trial on federal hate crime charges stemming from the killing. If convicted they can receive life in prison. Today was jury selection, and according to the blog The Adventures of a Wetback American, it is going to take a while before they seat one. It is not known yet if the usual anti-immigration suspects in the state made it out to the trial the way they did for the state trial. They were probably too busy banging their head against the wall, pissed off that they can’t seem to get a rally off the ground since the debacle that was the Phoenix rally. It’s just as well. Much like their rallies, it is just going to be a big disappoint for them. These boys are going away.

The Adventures of a Wetback American

There won’t be a jury in the next couple of days: defense attorney
Posted on October 5, 2010 by Gustavo Martínez Contreras

Judge Richard A. Caputo said he hoped the jury selection would be over by the end of the day just before breaking for lunch on the second day of the trial of the two Shenandoah, Pa., men charged with beating to death a Mexican undocumented immigrant.

But attorney James A. Swetz, who represents Brandon Piekarsky, said that the jury selection is far from over.
“I think we’re a couple of days away (from having a jury),” he said.

Swetz did not venture to reveal what they are asking the prospective jurors.

“It’s simply an effort on the part of the government and the defense to bring people in who can judge fairly and impartially based upon the evidence they hear on the courtroom,” he said.

The lawyer said that there are no jurors yet chosen to sit on the jury bench during the trial.

Derrick M. Donchak, 20, and Brandon J. Piekarsky, 18, face life in prison if found guilty of the charges stemming from the beating that took the life of Luis Eduardo Ramírez Zavala in July 2008.

Individual questioning continued inside a private room at the William J. Nealon Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse in Scranton.