St. ALBANS – After two trials and four years of headlines, it’s proving difficult for attorneys to find enough impartial jurors to hear the case of Norman McAllister, a former state senator from Franklin County accused of prostituting a tenant living and working on his Highgate farm.
Attorneys spent Monday in St. Albans criminal court quizzing potential jurors before running out of people to question and calling a new batch in Tuesday morning to finish the process of selecting a panel of 12 as well as two alternates.
The case has attracted headlines in Franklin County as well as across the state since McAllister’s arrest in 2015 outside the Vermont Statehouse on sex crimes.
That media attention, combined with McAllister’s deep connections in the northern Vermont county, resulted in the call out to more potential jurors.
McAllister, a former Republican lawmaker, was initially charged with alleged sex crimes. More serious charges filed against him of sexual assault have either been dropped or ended in acquittals after jury trials.
This week marks the third time in recent years that McAllister has stood trial on the misdemeanor prohibited acts charge. The latest trial is expected to begin once a jury is seated.
“It’s alleged that Mr McAllister acted as her pimp,” Franklin County Deputy State’s Attorney John Lavoie told the potential jurors Monday. “That’s the nature of this case.”
Lavoie then asked if that pimp allegation in the prosecution’s case would prevent them from being fair if selected. None of the potential jurors indicated it would keep them from acting impartially.
Robert Katims, McAllister’s attorney, in speaking to the jurors, reminded them that his client is presumed innocent, with the prosecution having to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
“It’s something you really have to believe is true to sit on a jury,” the defense attorney said of his client’s presumption of innocence.
Katims added that the reasonable doubt standard is a high level that the prosecution must meet.
“Can you hold to that?” the defense attorney asked one of the potential jurors.
“Uh huh,” the woman responded.
“Not the resounding yes I wanted to hear,” Katims said.
She then responded in a clearer voice that she could hold the prosecution to that standard.
By later Monday afternoon, a jury pool of 60 for Monday had been whittled down to 14, which would have been enough to hear the case and still have two alternates.
However, Judge Michael Kupersmith said both sides still had challenges left from the seven each is allowed to use to excuse potential jurors for any reason, prompting the call to bring in more people for questioning Tuesday morning.
About 40 more people will make up the next pool of potential jurors.
To help speed up the jury selection process, all potential jurors were asked to fill out questionnaires ahead of time to help gauge how much they knew about the case, or those involved in it. Many potential jurors were eliminated based on those responses.
The past trials ended with one jury convicting McAllister of the misdemeanor offense in a case that was later overturned by the Vermont Supreme Court.
Then, earlier this year in April as the case was being retried, Judge Kupersmith declared a mistrial after one of the jurors deliberating reported that he remembered hearing a news report that contained information not introduced into evidence.
Katims in his arguments to the jury in the case in April contended McAllister’s accuser, who rented a trailer on the former state senator’s property, made up the allegation against him.
It was the woman, the defense attorney told the jury, who suggested the prostitution arrangement to help pay for shortfalls in her rent and utility bills.
The prosecutor countered that McAllister proposed prostituting the woman to a friend to pay for the bills he covered for her. The woman has testified in both previous trials.
McAllister testified at the first trial in the case in July 2017, but did not testify during the second trial in April.
Katims, McAllister’s attorney, said outside of court Monday that the jury selection process in the first trial lasted three days, while in the second trial it was wrapped up in a day.
A key piece of evidence in the last trial was a portion of a recorded phone call between the woman and McAllister.
In that call, his accuser spoke with McAllister of plans that the two had previously talked about to prostitute her to migrant farmworkers to make money, with the pair splitting the proceeds.
McAllister, in that call, then said to the woman, “Like you did with that guy that one time?”
Lavoie told the jurors during the April trial it was McAllister who set up that meeting with “that guy” referred to in the phone call.
No meetings with the migrant farmworkers ever took place. The charge pending against McAllister relates to the allegation he “procured” the woman to have sex with “that guy.”
Katims during that trial and in court Monday suggested that the woman’s primary motivation for her allegations against McAllister was to maintain a relationship with her ex-husband.
Had McAllister not played a role in setting up that meeting with the man for sex, Katims suggested, the woman’s ex-husband would be more angry with her for doing it on her own.
Lavoie told the potential jurors Monday that, if selected for the panel to hear the case, they would have two choices to make when they enter their deliberations later this week, whether McAllister is guilty or not guilty.
“Innocent is for God,” the prosecutor added.
Kupersmith, speaking to potential jurors Monday, told them to avoid discussing the case with anyone, viewing or reading news accounts, or looking up any information related to it online.
“Nothing, zip, nada,” the judge added.
