Phone glitch impacts potential murder trial jurors
Unable to call the courthouse, prospective jurors did their due diligence and showed up for potential jury duty on Tuesday.
What happened is hundreds of – with some estimates being close to 500 – people were outside the Johnson Boulevard facility in South Lake Tahoe. About 20 percent of those people were needed for questioning.
People were parked all over the place – at the cemetery, dog park and the north entrance of the complex at Marlette Circle.
Joseph Michael Nissensohn
The court didn’t know there was a problem May 21 until employees saw the line of people.
Jurors are needed for the Joseph Michael Nissensohn murder trial. He has been housed at the El Dorado County Jail in South Tahoe for several years.
He is accused of murdering Kathy Graves, 15. The remains of the South Lake Tahoe teen were found near the Mount Tallac trailhead in 1990, about one year after she was last seen alive. He was charged with that crime in January 2008.
Nissensohn, now 62, is also accused of killing Monterey County teenagers Tanya Jones and Tammy Lynn Jarschke in 1981. He was charged with those murders in fall 2008.
In 1990 he was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1989 stabbing death of a woman in Tillicum, Wash.
Jury selection is expected to take a bit. It started last week. The trial is likely to last until the fall.
If found guilty, Nissensohn faces the death penalty.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
There are pictures and video of the line stretching around buildings all the way to Al Tahoe Blvd.
See http://SLTPDwatch.wordpress.com
Did you know that El Dorado District Attorney Vern Pierson is ALSO the IT Director? This was a big mess up for the jury summons by the IT Department and DA… The ID Director brings Vern Pierson another $100K a year in addition to his DA job. Double Dipping. What we get is a sloppy Information Technology system and a DA who claims to be too busy to prosecute crimes in El Dorado County (South Lake Tahoe).
Did the people who took the day off from work to show up get credit and pay (still $5.00?) for a day of jury duty served?
The courts are part of state, not county government. Their IT system is separate from that of the El Dorado County government. Jurors who showed up and checked in were given credit for appearing. If people left without checking in, no credit. Under California’s “One Day, One Trial” rule, jurors who did check in will not have to serve for a year thereafter, unless they do so by choice, or the yearly venire is utilized. Under California law, jurors are paid $15 per day, plus mileage, AFTER the first day of service. Not much money for an important job, but a legislative fix is required to change these amounts.
The phone glitch happened on the first day of juror selection … it just hadn’t been fixed by May 21.
what a waste of time. My husband spent hours there waiting for something to happen while he wasnt able to get to his job and be a productive member of this community. The El Dorado County Court needs to pay everyone that showed up the daily stipend just for the frustration and hassle. Shame on our judicial system :(
And what a farce. Every single person regestered in this town will end up summoned to waist time with this trial. Just throw the man in jail where he belongs…