As several dozen prospective jurors in the murder trial of Mohamed Noor filed into court for the first time this week, Hennepin County District Judge Kathryn Quaintance assured them that their identities would not be revealed publicly, to protect their privacy and shield them from unwanted media scrutiny.
Their names and addresses would only be known to the prosecution and Noor's defense team, she told them, and they were under strict orders not to share them with anyone.
In the meantime, those attorneys were almost certainly running background checks on them to predict whether they would make good jurors.
Monday marked the first day of Noor's trial — the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing Justine Ruszczyk Damond in a south Minneapolis alley two summers ago — as lawyers for both sides started the process of winnowing down the jury pool of about 75 people to 16 jurors and alternates. On Monday, they were given questionnaires that ranged in subject from their parents' occupations to their interactions with police. The pool of prospective jurors consists of about 50 men and 25 women — 15 of them people of color.
The judge and the attorneys agreed Tuesday afternoon to excuse six prospective jurors from Noor's trial based on their answers to the questionnaire.
The people who were let go include two women and four men. The judge and attorneys did not disclose their races or ages in discussing reasons for their dismissal, which ranged from having "negative" feelings about Somali-Americans to having already decided Noor's innocence or guilt. Noor is Somali-American.
The decisions were reached after Quaintance and the attorneys had reviewed more than half of the completed questionnaires.
The people who were dismissed are: a woman whose friend was the victim of an officer-involved shooting, a man who said he was "tired of cops getting away with murder," a man who had decided that Noor was innocent, a man who said he had a "bad mental illness," a man who said Noor was a "fast-track hire" and who has "negative feelings" about Somali-Americans, and a woman who said she knows Damond's fiancé, Don Damond, and Minneapolis police union President Lt. Bob Kroll, who are witnesses.