About 300 residents from Hollister and the surrounding areas
will be among the pool today whom a prosecutor, defense attorney
and judge will mull over as potential jurors in the trial of
Michael Rodrigues, a former San Benito County sheriff’s office
sergeant accused of raping four women.
About 300 residents from Hollister and the surrounding areas will be among the pool today whom a prosecutor, defense attorney and judge will mull over as potential jurors in the trial of Michael Rodrigues, a former San Benito County sheriff’s office sergeant accused of raping four women.
Today’s proceedings at the San Benito County Courthouse, in anticipation of a likely start to the trial Monday or Tuesday, will start with the pool of local residents.
The first big step will be to exclude potential jurors for “hardships” – such as a planned vacation or the person knowing a witness – which should just about halve the number of possible jurors, said Art Cantu, Rodrigues’ attorney. That step should last most of the day.
On Thursday, attorneys likely will continue winnowing the remaining pool by calling 18 potential jurors at a time for questioning, largely surrounding potential conflicts in the case or their ability to stay objective.
“That will go on as long as it takes,” Cantu said, “to the point where we have 12 jurors agreed upon.”
The defense attorney noted that Judge Alan Hedegard, visiting from Monterey County, hopes jury selection is finished by Friday, with potential last-minute arguments coming Monday. Opening arguments, then, potentially would start Monday or Tuesday, he said.
Cantu predicted there likely would be some sort of matter to consider Monday before opening arguments begin.
“There’s always going to be some issue that comes up,” he said.
The trial is expected to last for two weeks, with somewhere between 25 and 30 witnesses taking the stand.
On Tuesday, Cantu questioned two witnesses on the stand today at a preliminary trial hearing and focused on the credibility of the law enforcement investigation and one of the character witnesses.
Former San Benito County sheriff’s deputy and detective Jeff Goodwin said that when he had been working in the sheriff’s office during the 2007 internal investigation of Rodrigues, he was not allowed to use his office while an audio interview for the case was changed. When he asked what was happening in his office, he said a detective told him that’s what the law enforcement personnel were doing.
Goodwin also said that he went to the district attorney’s office to report the “inappropriate behavior” to District Attorney Candice Hooper.
Rodrigues’ attorney Art Cantu called on a second witness who previously had worked for and with former sheriff’s deputy and current Presidential Security owner John Klauer.
Cantu called another resident to the stand, but he could not be there for personal reasons.
