On the third day of proceedings in the trial of the man accused of murdering Faith Hedgepeth, Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca continued the process of jury selection. Seven potential jurors were dismissed throughout the course of the day, indicating a long road ahead to seat a 12-person jury.
“The purpose of jury selection,” Garcia-Lamarca repeated to each potential juror, “is to find people in the best position to be fair and impartial to the defendant and State of North Carolina.”
Miguel Salguero-Olivares made local and national headlines in 2021 after investigators linked him to the 2012 murder of Faith Hedgepeth, then a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, through DNA evidence. He faces charges for first-degree murder, burglary, sexual assault and rape. Because of the extensive media coverage surrounding the case, the court has taken the unusual step of questioning potential jurors one by one.
Finding a “fair and impartial” jury, for Garcia-Lamarca, means finding people who can separate their judgment of the case from their personal experiences, emotions, and pre-existing views. Her questions treated these factors as possible impediments to fair judgment, rather than as helpful starting points for deliberation.
“Jurors are fact-finders,” she told them. “You decide whether a crime was committed. Can you do that and not think at all about what will happen next?”
“The way you’re phrasing this—to not think about this at all—respectfully, I don’t think this is possible for anyone,” one potential juror said. He said he could promise to do his best at the job, but not that his mind would “never go that way.”
Garcia-Lamarca also asked potential jurors about their broader views of law enforcement, and whether that would affect how they evaluated individual officers who might testify in court.
“I have critiques of systemic aspects of how law enforcement operates in this community and in this country. That being said, I think I can listen to what the law enforcement individual says,” one potential juror said. “But it will be listened to within the context of my apprehension of how law enforcement operates as a system.”
When Garcia-Lamarca pressed him on whether his views of law enforcement would bias his views of the officers, he pushed back. He argued that recognizing that officers are “carrying that system” with them is part of being a “neutral assessor.” He was later dismissed.
Garcia-Lamarca repeatedly asked potential jurors whether they had already formed an opinion about the defendant’s guilt, and whether they could approach the evidence “fresh.” That was a particularly difficult standard for jurors who knew any details of the case. Two of the dismissed jurors were aware that investigators had linked Salguero-Olivares to Hedgepeth’s murder through DNA evidence.
“I guess, to me, you have as strong evidence as you can, and I guess DNA is one of them,” one juror said, although he expressed that he did not think he had formed an opinion about the defendant “other than the fact that he was the person they were saying was the one who did the crime.” He was dismissed.
No jurors have been seated yet for the trial. Jury selection will continue Thursday.
Photo at top: Defendant Miguel Salguero-Olivares appears in court, represented by attorneys James Rainsford, Christopher Barnes and Jason Murphy.
Miye Sugino
