Archive for the 'Judge Steinle' Category
October 29th, 2008, 10:47 am by Nick R. Martin
A juror just told Judge Roland Steinle that her boss has threatened to cut off her health insurance if she remains on the trial past the end of the month. A blond woman in the back row, Juror No. 5 said that her employer, Lehigh Hanson Aggregates, wants the court to pay for her health care if she is to stay.
The problem, Steinle said, is that the court doesn’t have the cash to pay for anyone’s health care. He also said he consulted with attorneys and believes the company’s move is illegal. “Under the statute, you can’t be penalized for being on the jury,” Steinle said. He plans to send a letter to the company, then refer the woman to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
However, Steinle said, if the company plays hardball, the woman may have to be excused from the jury. “Particularly in these economic times,” Steinle said, he doesn’t want someone to go without health insurance.
Posted in: Judge Steinle • Jurors • aggregates • attorney • Dale Hausner • health care • jury • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
October 23rd, 2008, 10:41 am by Nick R. Martin
Judge Roland Steinle dealt with more juror trouble this morning when he told juror No. 18 to stop talking to himself during testimony. “It’s distracting to the other jurors and it’s distracting to the lawyers,” Steinle told the middle-aged man in the front row. “It’s pretty hard to keep a poker face all the time,” Steinle said. But he asked the juror to still try.
The juror told Steinle he was having trouble hearing the testimony. “The reason that I make comments to myself all the time is because I can’t hear,” the man said.
Steinle asked him to sit in a seat closer to the witness stand, and said he hoped the little talk resolved the problem. “We’ll monitor the situation,” Steinle said.
Posted in: Judge Steinle • Jurors • Dale Hausner • Judge Steinle • Jurors • jury • Serial Shooter | Post a Comment »
October 22nd, 2008, 1:04 pm by Nick R. Martin
The Napping Juror in the front row tells Judge Roland Steinle that he, in fact, is not napping when he closes his eyes. He says it’s a technique that he uses all the time at work while on conference calls. He drops his eyes, but still listens to what’s happening. “My body may look like I’m falling asleep, but I’m retaining all the information,” the unnamed juror told Judge Roland Steinle.
Still, the judge asked the young man to keep his eyes open during the trial and told him to sit where Steinle can see him.
“I’ll add a couple Red Bulls to my system now,” the juror said.
Steinle again denied the defense team’s request to kick the juror off the trial, but he said after the man left the room that the juror was now “in the hot seat.”
As for the Loose-Lipped Juror, he apparently took off before the judge could call him back into the room. Steinle’s assistant said she asked him to stick around, but he slipped out of the courthouse before he was called back in. Attorneys and other jurors have complained that the man is making offhanded comments during testimony. At best, it’s distracting. At worst, it is possibly skewing the opinions of other jurors.
At this point, the middle-aged man seems like the more-likely candidate to get canned as the trial goes on. “I’ll deal with him tomorrow morning,” Steinle said.
Programming note: Wednesday was a short day. The trial is on break until Thursday morning. Join us here again at that time for more live updates.
Posted in: Judge Steinle • Jurors • judge • Judge Steinle • Jurors • jury • Serial Shooter | 1 Comment »
October 22nd, 2008, 11:46 am by Nick R. Martin
After testimony wrapped for the day yesterday, Judge Roland Steinle said he planned to pull aside two jurors and give them a talkin’ to, one for napping and the other for adding whispered commentary during the trial. Both jurors are men sitting in the front row. The first is in his 20s and was caught sleeping at least twice already. The other is middle-aged and was heard whispering things to other jurors, such as whether or not he believes a witness.
Steinle said this morning he plans to talk to the two jurors at about 1 p.m. when testimony ends for the day. He said in open court, he wants to keep things on the down low with other jurors. “We will have to deal with the gentleman at the end of today’s proceedings, but I want it to be very subtle,” Steinle said.
Photo by pool photographer. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Roland Steinle talks to attorneys during the trial of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner.
Posted in: Judge Steinle • Jurors • Judge Steinle • Jurors • jury • Serial Shooter | 1 Comment »
October 22nd, 2008, 10:22 am by Nick R. Martin
He rolled his eyes. He flailed his arms. He yelled. He cursed. He did everything but spit.
Defense attorney Ken Everett did his best Tuesday to try to discredit a key witness in the case against his client, Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner.
 In the end, the full-throated attack on witness John Kane appeared only to agitate the one man no attorney wants to upset - the judge.
“The questions are becoming repetitive,” Judge Roland Steinle warned Everett from the bench. “And nothing more than harassing.”
A day earlier, Kane, a former bartending instructor from Gilbert, testified that Hausner confessed to him about shooting an empty car in December 2005 in the parking lot of the Tempe bartending academy where they first met.
Kane told the jury that he and Hausner had become friends, and that Hausner thought he was doing his newfound pal a favor by shooting the car of a woman who recently filed a sexual harassment complaint against Kane.
The testimony was the first time anybody so far in the marathon trial directly tied Hausner to the Serial Shooter crime spree, which included eight murders and dozens of other shootings.
In court on Tuesday, Everett worked hard to debunk Kane’s story by forcefully and loudly attacking the man’s credibility.
Everett brought up Kane’s four prior felony convictions, his drug use and his alcoholism in an attempt to destroy his character. Then, he went after Kane’s motives for agreeing to testify.
He pointed out that Kane was arrested in April 2006 on drug and gun charges, and the testimony was part of an agreement he struck with prosecutors to get out of jail.
Along the way, the normally baritone voice of Everett grew ever stronger, and his attitude more critical, as he tried to show that not even he believed what Kane was saying.
Read full story…
Photo by pool photographer. Defense attorney Ken Everett questions a witness during the trial of Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Defense • Judge Steinle • attorneys • Dale Hausner • judge • Judge Steinle • phoenix • Serial Shooter • tempe | Post a Comment »
October 21st, 2008, 2:36 pm by Nick R. Martin
 Ken Everett continued to roll his eyes, yell expressions like “gee, John” and spew expletives throughout the cross examination of the first witness to implicate his client in one of the shootings.
“You told Dale, ‘That’s the (expletive)’s vehicle right there,’ didn’t you?” Everett said, grilling John Kane, the Gilbert man who said Serial Shooter suspect Dale Hausner confessed to shooting up a vehicle on Dec. 29, 2005.
Normally, Everett is aggressive and speaks at volumes above and beyond those of anyone else in the courtroom. But today, he has even crossed beyond his usual level in trying to discredit Kane.
The exclamations and cursing only come when he is quoting somebody else, but Everett doesn’t hold anything back.
This morning, Judge Roland Steinle told him to keep his voice down, but Everett has struggled to do so. This afternoon, Steinle asked the jury to leave the room so he could reprimand Everett once again. “You used other expressions to show that you clearly don’t believe what is being said out there,” Steinle told him, calling many of his questions “nothing more than harassing.”
In fact, Steinle told Everett to wrap up his questions with Kane, saying many of them were “becoming repetitive.” And, Steinle added, “You will stop rolling your eyes and other facial gestures.”
Photo by pool photographer. Dale Hausner’s attorney Ken Everett listens to testimony last week in Maricopa County Superior Court.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Defense • Judge Steinle • attorneys • Dale Hausner • gilbert • Serial Shooter • tempe | Post a Comment »
October 21st, 2008, 11:35 am by Nick R. Martin
John Kane, the Gilbert man who said Dale Hausner confessed a shooting to him, is facing a knock-down drag-out attack from the Hausner’s attorney this morning. Attorney Ken Everett has been pushing hard on Kane’s four prior felony convictions and the plea deal he made in exchange for testifying in the trial. The implication is that Kane’s testimony is not to be trusted.
As is Everett’s style, he’s loud and mad. And he’s pushing the envelope of what’s proper. In fact, Judge Roland Steinle just asked the jury to leave the room for a few moments so he could tell Everett to, well, chill out.
“Your questions are becoming argumentative and your tone is going way above,” Steinle said. He called some of Everett’s comments “totally inappropriate.”
“I’m asking you to lower your tone,” Steinle said.
Everett did not respond. But once the jury was brought back into the courtroom, he resumed his questioning at about half the volume.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Defense • Judge Steinle • attorneys • Dale Hausner • gilbert • Serial Shooter • tempe | Post a Comment »
October 14th, 2008, 11:00 am by Nick R. Martin
Moments ago, just after the mother of David Estrada, the second victim, took the stand, power went out in the courtroom. Pitch black in the windowless room.
Two guards pulled out flashlights and shined them toward Dale Hausner. In the darkness, Hausner reached out toward one of them. “I’m right here,” he said.
About 30 seconds later, the lights came back on. Jurors could be heard sighing in relief. Judge Roland Steinle said, “Kind of thought the county forgot to pay the electric bill.”
Pool photo. The mother of David Estrada tells about her son’s death in court.
Posted in: Dale Hausner • Judge Steinle • Life in trial | Post a Comment »
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