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La. Supreme Court orders new jury, trial for accused cop killer

5 years 1 week 2 days ago Thursday, April 18 2019 Apr 18, 2019 April 18, 2019 12:02 AM April 18, 2019 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - The Louisiana Supreme Court has ordered a new jury pool and a new trial for a man accused of killing a police officer in 2015, documents show.

The court had ordered an emergency stay on proceedings in the murder trial of Grover Cannon last week. The hold was ordered after flaws in the East Baton Rouge jury selection process came to light. Cannon's attorneys said the technical error would skew the makeup of the jury.

The Supreme Court had previously ordered Judge Ramona Emmanuel to hold a hearing April 10 to examine oddities in the jury pool.

That hearing revealed that a computer error has caused huge swaths of the Baton Rouge population to be excluded from jury selection since 2011. Court administrators said anyone who turned 18 or moved to Baton Rouge in the past eight years has not been considered for jury duty.

Cannon faces a potential death sentence in the 2015 murder of Shreveport Police Officer Thomas LaValley. Emmanuel moved the jury selection to East Baton Rouge after Cannon's attorneys argued he couldn't get a fair trial in Caddo Parish.

Officials were first tipped off to the problem in the East Baton Rouge jury "wheel" after Cannon's attorneys complained of the predominately aging, white jurors pulled from the parish.

It's unclear at this time when Cannon's trial will resume.

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