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Monday, Oct. 26, 2009

Jury selection begins in Moss Point shooting

PASCAGOULA — Most of the 99 potential jurors for the capital murder trial of a Moss Point teen on Monday said they had heard or read details about the high-profile case.

Darwin Wells, 15 at the time, is accused of shooting to death a Hattiesburg man who had stopped at a Moss Point convenience store at night to ask directions to a high school football game, where his wife’s grandson was playing.

The Public Defender’s office had asked the court last month to move the trial out of the county, but the request was denied.

What became an issue Monday was just how much each potential juror knew about the shooting death and whether that knowledge would keep them from being a fair juror.

In order to keep what one potential juror said about the case from tainting the rest of the jury pool, Circuit Court Judge Dale Harkey had all the jurors wait in the hallway outside the courtroom as he and attorneys for both sides questioned each potential juror individually.

There were roughly 75 who said they had knowledge of the case. A few of them said they had formed opinions and doubted they could be fair.

At one point, Public Defender Brice Kerr asked Harkey not to make a face when a potential juror expressed doubt at his ability to be fair.

Kerr said Harkey had made “an aghast face” at two jurors.

“I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” Kerr said. “But some will be intimidated by it.”

Harkey said, “I’ll endeavor to maintain a stoic demeanor.”

One potential juror, a Biloxi policeman, was dismissed around 3 p.m.

During the afternoon of individual interviews, one potential juror told Harkey he was a grandparent and thought that might come back to haunt him, since the man who was killed was a grandparent.

Others called the crime “heinous” and “a terrible tragedy” for their community. Some said they had heard a great deal about the case last year in October, when it happened, but little since then. Others said they had read about it or heard details about the case on Monday morning. Some related peripheral details about the case that were incorrect.

Harkey denied cameras in the courtroom during the jury selection proceedings, but the Public Defender’s office complained that there were cameras on the street near the courthouse. Kerr said that if they are able to pick a jury from this pool, he would like the court to consider sequestering them because of the fanfare.

The Hattiesburg American covered the proceedings Monday, because the case had been high-profile in that city as well.

Killed last year was Michael David Porter, 44, as he and his wife, Linda Bell Porter, stopped at a convenience store on Mississippi 63 in east Moss Point to ask directions to Pascagoula’s War Memorial Stadium. They had missed an exit off Interstate 10, according to police.

Wells is accused of shooting Porter during a robbery while Porter was out of his car. Also indicted on capital murder charges in the killing are Terry Hye Jr., 15 at the time, and Telvin James Benjamin, 14 at the time. They will be tried separately.

Capital murder is murder while committing another crime. It can be punishable by death, but not in this case, because the teens to be tried are minors. Wells, who was a junior high school student at the time of the shooting, faces life in prison if convicted. Two adults and a 17-year-old were indicted as accessories after the fact to the murder for either failing to report the crime or aiding the teens who were later arrested.

On Monday, Wells sat at the front of the courtroom wearing a light-blue shirt and glasses, with his hair cropped short. He said little during the proceedings.

Linda Bell Porter was not present.