Strohmeyer jury picked

Bill Gang

Thursday, Sept. 3, 1998 | 10:44 a.m.

Jeremy Strohmeyer's defense attorney Leslie Abramson predicted early in the case that she expected jury selection for his murder trial could take more than two months.

It took three days.

By noon Wednesday, a five-woman, seven-man jury -- including three blacks -- had been selected to decide whether the 19-year-old defendant from Long Beach raped and murdered 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson at a Primm casino.

Race is a factor in the case because Strohmeyer is white and Iverson was black.

Shortly before 7 p.m., six alternates had been chosen in case illness or unfortunate circumstance forces any of the original 12 off the jury. The alternates include four women and two men, who are all white.

Jury selection had been expected to last most of the week, but that schedule began to crumble mid-morning Wednesday when District Attorney Stewart Bell and his team decided they were happy with the 12 potential jurors sitting in the jury box.

Defense and prosecution teams each had eight "challenges" under Nevada law to bump prospective jurors from the panel for virtually any tactical reason except race or gender.

The rationale is to eliminate jurors who the lawyers believe would be least sympathetic to their positions and philosophies in the case.

Prosecutors used only three of their eight challenges before giving up their next three as they determined those in the jury box were acceptable.

The defense used five of their eight before agreeing that they could live with the jury.

One of the defense challenges was used to excuse a black man, drawing protests from prosecutors. But defense attorney Richard Wright denied that race was a factor in the challenge and explained that he believed the juror's answers to questions had been "evasive and incomplete."

Chief District Judge Myron Leavitt accepted Wright's explanation while noting that if the elimination of a black juror was the purpose, it didn't work because the juror eventually picked for that seat was a black woman.

Throughout the jury selection process, Strohmeyer intently watched the citizens who will be empowered to decide whether he lives or dies. He participated in tactical decisions about which jurors would be excluded.

At points, Abramson would put her arm around her client's shoulders or on the back of his neck and chat with him about the process.

Although jury selection was completed ahead of schedule, Leavitt decided the attorneys would not give opening statements or begin calling witnesses until Tuesday.

He said that would give the jurors a few days to take care of business matters and "say goodbye to their families." The jurors will be sequestered in a downtown hotel when not in court and will not have contact with their families or employers.

As with the first two days of jury selection, questions Wednesday focused on the ability of prospective jurors to be fair despite the extensive media coverage of the May 25, 1997, rape and murder of Iverson, of Los Angeles. The attorneys also wanted to be sure that jurors could consider the full range of penalties -- including the death sentence -- should Strohmeyer be convicted of first-degree murder.

The second-grader's body was found propped on a toilet in a restroom at the Primm Valley hotel-casino, on the California-Nevada border 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas, a short time after Strohmeyer and his friend, David Cash Jr., had left the resort.

The girl's father had been gambling during the early morning hours, and Iverson had been left in the custody of her 14-year-old brother at the hotel's video arcade, but she wandered away.

A security video captured the girl playing with Strohmeyer outside the arcade before they both entered the women's restroom where events turned deadly. Strohmeyer was arrested outside his Long Beach, Calif., home three days later, after the video was broadcast on Southern California television stations.

Testimony before a Clark County grand jury that indicted him indicated he also confessed to friends while soliciting money to flee the country and the impending charges.

Despite being Strohmeyer's best friend, Cash became a key prosecution witness in the case and told the grand jury that the defendant had confessed to him that he killed the girl.