[S]T. ALBANS — Efforts to seat a jury in the second of two sexual assault trials for former Franklin County state Sen. Norm McAllister will stretch into a third day.
Attorneys have dismissed more than 70 prospective jurors for reasons that include having already formed opinions about the widely publicized case, knowing people involved, or having had experiences that could affect their ability to be impartial.
The former Republican lawmaker faces charges that he sexually assaulted a woman who was living in a trailer on his Highgate farm during what prosecutors describe as a sex-for-rent scheme.
McAllister’s defense is expected to attack the credibility of his accuser and argue that the alleged assaults were actually part of consensual, if illegal, sexual acts. Some questions during jury selection focused on prostitution.
Judge Martin Maley allowed records from the woman’s family court history to be entered as evidence but denied a defense request to enter mental health records, saying they weren’t relevant.
Prosecutors are expected to play an audio recording of a phone call between McAllister and the woman accusing him of sexual assault. McAllister’s former defense attorney described the recording as “devastating evidence.”
Maley ruled that the state’s attorney can’t bring up the allegations or evidence from the previous trial, involving a woman who worked as an intern in Montpelier for McAllister. That trial began last summer, but prosecutors dropped that case after it emerged that the woman had lied about a detail of her relationship with another person who worked on McAllister’s farm.
McAllister was set to go to trial for the second case in January but entered into a plea deal after a jury was selected — a process that lasted a single day.
A short time later, he fired his defense team and asked to take back his no-contest plea, saying he accepted the deal “under pressure” from his attorneys. A judge allowed McAllister to withdraw his plea in March.
The charges against McAllister brought an abrupt end to the Republican lawmaker’s political career.
He was arrested outside the Statehouse in 2015 and then suspended from the Senate. He lost a re-election bid last year in the August primary.
McAllister’s new defense attorney, Robert Katims, focused his questions for prospective jurors Tuesday on whether they understood and believed in the presumption of innocence and the state’s burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Katims asked how they would judge a person’s credibility — especially if the person may have lied under oath. He also asked prospective jurors whether they believed prostitution, or sex in exchange for anything of value, could be consensual even if it’s illegal.
Assistant State’s Attorney John Lavoie asked them whether the reverse could be true: that someone prostituting themselves could agree to some sexual acts while not agreeing to others. Lavoie also asked if the prospective jurors could think of any reasons why someone who has been sexually assaulted might recant the allegations.
The prosecution and defense are afforded six peremptory strikes, or the ability to dismiss up to six jurors without cause. Each side used three Tuesday.
The trial is expected to begin Wednesday once a jury is selected and to end by Friday.
