Saturday, September 17, 2016
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Attorneys in the capital murder case against Robert Seman have filed a motion in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court asking for a mistrial.
The motion was filed Thursday before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney. Because it is under seal, specific details are not available. The motion also asks the judge to disqualify the jury and discharge the jury pool in the case and also for a change of venue.
Jury selection started in the case Tuesday after more than 150 jurors showed up Sept. 9 for jury orientation. It has been delayed this week because Judge Sweeney is attending a previously scheduled judicial conference.
Judge Sweeney did overrule a defense request Monday for a change of venue due to intense pretrial publicity.
The motion was filed by defense attorneys Lynn Maro and Tom Zena several months ago. It was augmented over the weekend, however, with supplemental briefs from the jury orientation, where the defense attorneys said some potential jurors glared at Seman, some cried and a corrections officer at the jail where Seman is being held showed up in uniform and told jurors he supervised Seman at the jail.
All those incidents, the defense attorneys contended, would poison the remaining jurors against their client.
Judge Sweeney said while overruling the motion she would revisit the issue should there be problems picking a jury.
Prosecutors on Friday filed a response to the defense motion, but it also is under seal.
Seman, 47, of Green Township, could face the death penalty if convicted of the deaths of Corinne Gump, 10, and her grandparents, William and Judith Schmidt, after an arson March 30, 2015, at their Powers Way home on the South Side the day Seman was to go on trial on charges of raping the girl.
Seman was free on bond at the time of the fire.
Seman is eligible for the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder because prosecutors charged he killed the witness to a crime; killed a person younger than 13; killed two or more people; and killed someone in the commission of another felony, which in this case means aggravated arson or aggravated burglary.
If jurors find Seman is eligible for the death penalty, a second phase of the trial, or mitigation phase, will take place at which defense attorneys will present evidence to jurors showing them why they should spare Seman’s life.