JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jury selection in the death penalty trial of a man accused of raping and killing his 16-year-old niece got underway Monday, with a pool of 112 potential jurors winnowed to just 81.
Dozens of potential jurors said serving in the 2-to-3-week trial would pose a personal or financial hardship. Others said they’d already formed fixed opinions about the high-profile case.
Johnathan Quiles, 33, is charged with murdering Iyana Sawyer and her unborn child in December 2018. He’s charged in a separate case with raping another child relative. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
Individual questioning of jurors was held out of public view in a separate jury deliberation room for most of the day. In late afternoon, after local media objected to the closed process, Circuit Judge Anthony Salem returned the process to open court.
Jurors summoned from that point forward, included a man who lives in the same community as a veteran Assistant State Attorney, a woman whose parents are clients of Quiles’ defense lawyer, and a woman whose husband is friends with the judge.
Several people said their previous exposure to the case would prevent them from being impartial jurors.
“It was an incestuous, pedophilia-type situation,” one woman said when asked about her knowledge of the case. “Which I am definitely against.”
Three other jurors said they had siblings or children who attended Terry Parker High School around the same time Iyana Sawyer disappeared.
Judge Salem wants to seat 12 jurors and four alternates in the case, which is expected to last at least two weeks.
Salem said his goal is to seat the jury Tuesday, and asked attorneys for both sides whether they thought that was possible. Assistant State Attorney Dan Skinner replied, “It depends on the panel and what kind of animal comes out of the bag.”
Jury selection resumes Tuesday at 9 a.m.