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Jury selection in death penalty trial for Rowe going slow
Jury selection in the death penalty trial of Donnie Russell Rowe Jr. has now entered its 2nd week.
Instead of the trial starting today (Tuesday) as previously scheduled, it’s likely it will not start until sometime early next week, according to Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III.
While most Americans celebrated a long Labor Day holiday weekend, those involved in the selection of jurors in Grady County Superior Court in Cairo worked throughout the day.
Although Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Chief Judge Brenda H. Trammell had indicated that the questioning of prospective jurors would continue Saturday and Monday, she later decided to give everyone a weekend break but ordered their return on Labor Day to pick up where they left off Friday.
The prosecution team along with defense attorneys must qualify 57 prospective jurors before they began striking jurors and ultimately coming up with 12 trial jurors, and 5 alternate jurors.
As of Tuesday morning, only 31 prospective jurors from a pool of about 600 residents in Grady County had been qualified, Barksdale told The Union-Recorder.
“It’s been a slow go, but we’re getting there,” Barksdale said.
The district attorney, who is being assisted in prosecution of the case by Chief Assistant District Attorney Allison Mauldin and Senior Assistant District Attorney Dawn Baskin, said he didn’t think the trial would start before next Monday.
Once the goal of 57 prospective jurors has been reached, attorneys on both sides will begin the striking process. The 12 trial jurors and five alternates will then be selected from the 57 qualified list.
Due to pretrial publicly concerning the case, Trammell moved that jury selection be held in Grady County rather than Putnam County.
Rowe has appeared with his defense team each day of jury selection. He is represented by Franklin J. Hogue, of Macon, as well as Adam S. Levine and Erin Wallace of the Georgia Northeast Capital Defender Office in Athens.
Rowe and co-defendant Ricky Dubose are accused of killing Sgt. Curtis Billue and Sgt. Christopher Monica, both of whom were officers with the Georgia Department of Corrections. They were assigned to the transportation department of Baldwin State Prison.
Billue and Monica, both Baldwin County residents, were shot to death with their state-issued 9mm pistols during Rowe and Dubose’s escape from a state prison transport bus with more than 2 dozen other inmates onboard. Rowe and Dubose later escaped from the bus.
The back-to-back murders of the corrections officers and escape happened June 13, 2017, along a stretch of Ga. Route 16, between Long Shoals Road in Putnam County and Eatonton.
The escapees subsequently hijacked the driver of a car at gunpoint and then drove to Madison where they committed a residential burglary and stole a pickup truck in Morgan County. They then drove the truck across the Georgia state line into Tennessee where they began another crime spree, including a home invasion, and engaged in a shootout with deputies on an interstate highway.
Rowe and Dubose later wrecked a stolen SUV before they eventually surrendered to authorities. They were later brought back to Georgia where they were informed that the state planned to seek the death penalty against both of them in connection with the murders of Billue and Monica.
Dubose death penalty trial isn't slated until next year. Jury selection in his case will come from Glynn County in Brunswick.
(source: The Union-Recorder)
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