Give the rest a bad name. A lawyer defending a 79-year old woman accused of shooting her ex-boyfriend, is complaining that his client's constitutional right to a trial by her peers is being violated.
The potential jurors are all too young.
As Lena Sims Driskell peered over her gold-rimmed glasses Monday at potential jurors in her murder trial, some of the 58 candidates were young enough to be her great-grandchildren. Only five seemed close to 70, the legal age for exemption as a juror in the state of Georgia.
"This is the youngest jury pool I've ever seen," said Driskell's attorney, Deborah Poole. "Most of these people look under 30. How does one have a trial when you are not able to include a whole class of people in the jury?"
Driskell is accused of fatally shooting Herman Winslow on June 10, 2005, as he read the newspaper at the senior citizens home where the two lived. After dating for a year, police said Driskell became angry when Winslow broke off their relationship and started seeing another woman.
Driskell is charged with murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm.
Police say she was wearing a hairnet, stockings, a bathrobe and slippers when she confronted Winslow at his apartment. Winslow complained and a security guard tried to calm Driskell down, but when he turned around she drew an antique handgun she had hidden behind her back, put the gun to Winslow's head and fired up to four times, Detective D.B. Mathis said.
"I did it and I'd do it again!" Driskell was quoted as yelling to the officers who found her waving the gun and holding her finger on the trigger when they arrived.
Hairnet, bathrobe, stockings, slippers and packing heat. This sounds like one tough retirement home. There's a picture I just did NOT need in my head.
