On Monday morning Presiding Judge Michael J. Cordonnier waited with several others for over an hour in the large third-floor courtroom used for jury selection.
Elsewhere in the building 70 potential jurors waited, as well.
The murder trial of Elizabeth McKeown should have started at 9 a.m. But something was missing.
It was defendant McKeown, who, through no fault of her own, was two hours late.
That's because she was one of 838 county prisoners recently transferred to the new $150 million Greene County Jail at West Division Street and North Haseltine Road.
The former jail was next to the courthouse on Boonville Avenue. The new one is six miles away and, apparently, the logistics of getting defendants to court on time needs some fine-tuning.
McKeown, 49, finally made her appearance at 10:13 a.m. and Cordonnier, who didn't like people waiting idly in his courtroom and potential jurors pulled from home and work waiting, quickly got things rolling with an apology for the delay.
“Hopefully this will be a complete anomaly and we will not repeat it again,” he said.
McKeown is charged with murdering Barbara Foster, of Springfield, a stranger, by allegedly running her over in November 2018.
This case is hard to forget because of McKeown’s apparent heartless reaction to the death.
It likely will be hard to forget for another reason, too.
It is expected that McKeown's lawyer, Jon Van Arkel, will argue that McKeown's mental capacity was diminished by a psychosis caused by her inability to metabolize dextromethorphan, the key ingredient in some cough syrups.
Van Arkel told me in April via email:
“This case will likely present issues regarding pre-existing mental health circumstances, as well as blood chemistry, which may have resulted in psychotic behavior at the time of the incident.”
Most reporters typically don't cover jury selection; they wait for the main event, the trial, to commence. I've only done it a couple of times in my career.
Nevertheless, for two hours Monday, I watched with fascination as 70 people pulled from our community sat on hardwood benches while being quizzed about their backgrounds and their ability to be fair and impartial.
Cordonnier told them that he was looking for jurors with an open mind.
“I want people who start this case on the fence,” he said.
As I watched the potential jurors pass, filling the seven rows in front of me, the first thing I noticed was that not one of them was a Black person.
I don't know why that would. Was this an anomaly? Jurors are selected by computer randomization from voter registration and Department of Revenue (driver's license) records
I should mention that both the defendant and victim, in this case, are white.
Cordonnier used a few sentences to summarize the narrative of the alleged crime and asked how many of the potential jurors had heard any of the basic information.
The hands weren't up very long but I think I counted about 22.
That surprised me; I thought there would be far more.
Cordonnier asked each how long they had lived in Greene County, where they worked and where their spouse or partner worked — if they had a spouse or partner.
For those retired, he wanted to know what they did prior to retirement.
A bunch of O'Reilly employees in jury pool
By far the No. 1 employer of this lot of potential jurors was O'Reilly Auto Parts; about 10 of the 70 work there.
It prompted Cordonnier to ask, “Is there anybody at the store today?”
Emily Shook, first assistant Greene County prosecuting attorney, asked the potential jurors something I never would have thought to ask.
Because the death occurred at about 5 p.m. near an intersection with heavy traffic — Campbell and Sunshine — Shook asked if any of the 70 had actually seen the event.
One hand went up. The potential juror did not see the defendant or the body; she saw people standing in the roadway and several police cars and only later, through media reports, did she find out what had happened.
McKeown allegedly told police she got upset sitting in afternoon traffic behind Foster’s vehicle on Nov. 20, 2018 — on Campbell Avenue near University Street — because she was in a hurry to get to the bank to make a car payment.
A probable cause statement says McKeown told police that when the driver in front of her, Foster “wouldn’t go,” she started nudging Foster’s car and then “decided to hit it full out.”
After the impact, the statement says, Foster got out of her car to assess the damage, and McKeown hit Foster with her Ford Mustang.
The probable cause statement says:
“McKeown stated, ‘the lady with the glasses’ (Foster) was yelling at her. McKeown then said, ‘I tricked her, you know make her think I was going to be nice, be still and everything.’
“McKeown stated Foster started looking at the damage to her vehicle and McKeown ‘backed it up and then I slammed into her and cut her in half.’ McKeown said she just wanted to pay her car payment.”
Police called the incident an act of “road rage.”
Foster worked at Eyeglass World.
Shook worked her way through a list of likely witnesses at trial — mostly police and doctors — and asked if anyone in the pool of 70 knew them?
She said that Foster's mother would likely testify as well as McKeown's ex-husband.
One man in the jury pool said that McKeown's ex-husband was one of his closest friends.
Finally, Shook asked if there was anyone who would not be able to stick to their own opinion and, instead, would likely succumb to pressure and simply go along with the rest of the group.
Two people raised a hand.
I did not stay for all of jury selection; I left before anyone was stricken from being on the jury.
Near noon, Cordonnier announced, “There has been some observed squirming going on.”
It was time for lunch. The trial is expected to conclude Friday.
This is Pokin Around column No. 44.
