Jury selection in Philly officer slaying case continues
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer
After a break for Columbus Day, a Common Pleas Court judge, the prosecution, and defense lawyers will try again this week to complete a jury for the death penalty trial of Rasheed Scrugs, accused killer of Police Officer John Pawlowski. Last week, eight jurors were chosen from more than 350 prospects called to the Criminal Justice Center. Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes had said she hoped to begin testimony Tuesday, but the pace flagged, with just one juror picked since Thursday. A panel of 12 and four alternates is required.
Scrugs, 35, a West Philadelphia parolee, could face the death penalty if found guilty of first-degree murder.
He is accused of initiating a Feb. 13, 2009, shoot-out with police at Broad Street and Olney Avenue after a cabdriver called 911 and said Scrugs was threatening him.
Pawlowski, 25, a five-year veteran, was hit in the upper chest by a bullet that passed over the top of his bulletproof vest. He was the most recent city police officer killed in the line of duty - the seventh in three violent years.
Jury selection is often protracted in death penalty cases because of the need to find jurors who are open to a sentence of death by lethal injection, but also willing, if warranted, to impose life in prison without parole.
The death penalty issue is further complicated when a police officer is the victim and the subject of intense media coverage.
Lawyers in the Pawlowski case also have come up against a challenge becoming more commonplace in large cities such as Philadelphia: prospective jurors who know a homicide victim or a convicted murderer.
As of Sunday, according to the Philadelphia police, 248 homicides were recorded this year. That is slightly above the total of 237 for the same period in 2009.
Familiarity with a killing or a killer does not automatically exclude a potential juror. But it can make defense lawyers and prosecutors uncomfortable enough to exercise a preemptory challenge, a veto of a prospective juror without having to state a reason.
Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local...#ixzz12KL9CjCG
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