By Gustavo Martinez Contreras
LatinaLista
Posted October 5, 2010
SCRANTON, PA — Judge Richard A. Caputo said he hoped the jury selection would be over by the end of the day just before breaking for lunch on the second day of the trial of the two Shenandoah, Pa., men charged with beating to death a Mexican undocumented immigrant.
Derrick M. Donchak (blue shirt), 20, and Brandon J. Piekarsky (green shirt), 18, leave a federal courthouse in Scranton, PA on October 4, 2010.
But attorney James A. Swetz, who represents Brandon Piekarsky, said that the jury selection is far from over.
“I think we’re a couple of days away (from having a jury),” he said.
Swetz did not venture into what they are asking the prospective jurors.
“It’s simply an effort on the part of the government and the defense to bring people in who can judge fairly and impartially based upon the evidence they hear on the courtroom,” he said.
The lawyer said that there are no jurors yet chosen to sit on the jury bench during the trial.
Derrick M. Donchak, 20, and Brandon J. Piekarsky, 18, face life in prison if found guilty of the charges stemming from the beating that took the life of Luis Eduardo RamÃrez Zavala in July 2008.
Individual questioning continued inside a private room at the William J. Nealon Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse in Scranton.
