On the fourth day of jury selection, both counsels said they were content with eight potential jury members in the trial of the man accused of killing Faith Hedgepeth. Yet the court is far from deciding the remaining four jury positions.
A prospective juror told a deputy today that he would rather serve time in jail for contempt of court than serve on this jury. After he repeated the claim to Judge Keith Gregory, the judge promptly — and angrily — removed him for cause and said he would not order the clerk to pay the man any money.
“It’s a duty of citizenship [to serve on a jury]. I take that seriously….to allow for this juror to receive money from the State of North Carolina…causes me great concern as to, respectfully, whether or not he understands that it’s a duty of citizenship,” Judge Gregory said.
“It’s unfortunate, but I’ll just leave it at that,” he added.
Defendant Miguel Salguero-Olivares faces charges for first-degree murder, burglary, sexual assault and rape. Faith Hedgepeth, then a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,was found dead in her off-campus apartment in 2012. Investigators connected Salguero-Olivares to the murder in 2021 using DNA evidence.
The case has received considerable attention from local and national news outlets throughout the past 14 years, a fact highlighted by both counsels in jury selection, which began on Monday. When each new prospective juror arrives alone in the jury box, Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca first asks what they may have already learned about the case from media outlets.
The goal, according to Garcia-Lamarca, is finding a jury that can be fair and impartial. But the process has become more complicated as the week has progressed.
This morning, 12 potential jury members were questioned as a group, after two potential jury members were added to replace the ones dismissed Wednesday.
Defense attorney James Rainsford took issue with one jury candidate, who works as an attorney. The potential juror said he had never received a jury summons before.
“I understand the importance of impartiality, of being objective, and so, yes, I’m absolutely capable of weighing the evidence as it comes to me and separating that from my working relationship with anyone involved. Yes, I can be fair to both sides,” the potential juror said.
Judge Gregory denied Rainsford’s attempt to strike the prospective juror for cause because the candidate had “met the threshold” to be fair and impartial.
But after the lunch break, Rainsford dismissed him and two other prospective jurors using peremptory challenges, a process that allows counsel on both sides to remove jurors without any explanation. The prosecution has used two of its challenges so far.
Judge Keith Gregory then asked if the defense and the prosecution were content with the other eight jurors in consideration, to which both responded yes.
The process began again with similar hiccups, as two of the new candidates said they could not set aside the preconceived notions they had already developed about the case.
At last, the court identified four new potential jurors — who all denied having any prior knowledge about Faith Hedgepeth and Miguel Salguero-Olivares — and brought the group of twelve back in. Yet before the court adjourned for the day, one of the prospective jurors was again excused from the jury for cause.
Jury selection will resume at 9:30 a.m. Friday.
Sophie Endrud
