Jury selection for the trial of Kevin Monahan, the man accused of fatally shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis in his driveway last spring, continued for a second day Tuesday.
The case centers on the circumstances of the April 15th shooting that left a young Schuylerville woman dead. Monahan is accused of firing upon vehicles that had mistakenly entered the driveway of his Hebron home.
The court has called 500 people as potential jurors due to the high-profile nature of the case, and the preliminary selection process is expected to go through Wednesday with opening arguments Thursday.
Reporters were eventually approved to enter into the back of the courtroom where Judge Adam Michelini, the prosecutors and defense team were interviewing potential jurors on their responses to the rudimentary juror questionnaire.
There, jurors were brought in one at a time and asked, for example, how much they had heard about the case from TV, radio, or online news sources. The lawyers then followed up and asked if they had begun to form any opinions on the case given the information they had already gathered.
Past interactions with law enforcement or the criminal justice system were also at the center of many of the questions. Judge Michelini dismissed many jurors following this line of questioning.
One question he asked often was whether potential jurors would be able to put aside what they had already seen and heard about the case in the news and base their decision solely on the several weeks of evidence they would hear during the trial.
This pre-screening process is really basic, but potential jurors were dismissed for a variety of reasons. Some had interacted with the Justice for Kaylin Gillis Facebook group, which has more than 6,000 followers, and were dismissed right away. Others were sent home due to their firearms training that taught them that the only reason someone should aim or shoot a gun at another person is if they intend to kill them.
Still others were dismissed because there were just too few degrees of separation between them and individuals involved in the trial.
