Jury Selection in Hate Trial

Justice Robert W. Doyle is in the midst of selecting a jury for the case of Marcelo Lucero, a 37-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant who was attacked by seven teenagers and stabbed to death in Patchogue, New York in November of 2008. The New York Times reports that “Lucero’s death prompted widespread outrage and exposed racial tensions in Patchogue, where a number of Latinos came forward after the attack to describe muggings and assaults that had them living in fear.” The teenagers who attacked Lucero had, according to the police, “made sport out of assaulting Hispanic men, calling it ‘beaner hopping.’ ” Now, as the first defendant is about to go on trial, the process of jury selection is underway. Jury selection has “proven difficult, in part because of the views on Latino immigration held by some prospective jurors in Suffolk County.” One prospective juror said that “her father, a mechanic, has a ‘huge opinion about illegal immigration,’ and that his views on the subject have ‘become my opinions as well.’ ” Another prospective juror took a different view, saying that “most of the clients in her job are illegal Latino immigrants. ‘I don’t think that because of that they should be killed,’ she told Justice Doyle.” Prospective juror Carla Panetta, who was also excused, “criticized those prospective jurors who said they could not be fair because of their views on illegal immigration.” Panetta said, “ ‘I don’t care whether the man was legal, illegal, white, black, purple or green. . . . There was a murder. It almost seemed like the poor victim was the one going on trial.’ ”