Attorneys in a local murder trial have spent quite a bit of time asking jurors about their experiences with domestic violence, as well as violence in general.
It’s not, perhaps, surprising, given that the case revolves around allegations that defendant George W. Huguely V killed his ex-girlfriend.
“In a case where it’s undisputed that a man hurt a woman, would you have any difficulty remaining objective about whether that harm caused the woman’s death?” defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana asked one participant.
That woman, in particular, said that she was a victim of domestic abuse, but that it wouldn’t prevent her from sitting on the jury.
“It was only once or twice, and it didn’t bother me,” she said.
At one point, she said she felt unsafe and took her son to a shelter, but added that the perpetrator was her now-ex husband.
She said she didn’t think they’d gone to court.
“We were past that in our relationship,” she said. (He became an ex for other reasons, she said.)
She said testimony from the victim’s mother wouldn’t be likely to unduly sway her because she has no daughters of her own.
“I don’t know if I identify much with mothers who have daughters because I have sons,” she said. “They’re a lot different.”
After a bit of a pause, she offered, “Well, they are.”
She made it through into the jury pool.
Other tales ranged from those who’d known domestic violence victims to those who’d grown up with it.
Most of the jury candidates who reported it were women, but at least one man mentioned it too.
Another woman reported that her father had abused her mother, who had Parkinson’s disease. When her parents were elderly, her father was drunk one day, the former nurse testified. Her mother fell, but her father was unable to do anything for her, because he tripped, breaking his neck.
One juror was sent home quickly.
With emotion in her voice, she said she thought her history with abuse would mar her ability to judge the case fairly.
“I was abused myself,” she said. “My mother was abused.”
Quagliana also asked jurors if they’d feel she was “blaming the victim” if she brought out unflattering facts about Yeardley Love, the victim in the case, in an effort to shed light on her client’s frame of mind.
That question eventually drew a rebuke from Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman, who argued that it was checking the jury’s reaction to facts, rather than simply assessing their impartiality.
“That’s something that we ought to be entitled to explore, because it’s critical to our defense,” she countered.
Attempting to find an acceptable wording of the question with the judge, she suggested that Love may have, among other things, used bad and foul language, drunk to excess and been aggressive with Huguely.
The judge noted Quagliana’s argument but sided with the prosecution.
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