The jury that will decide R. Kelly’s fate on federal charges stemming from the alleged sexual abuse of minors is expected to be empaneled in a Chicago courtroom on Tuesday.
R. Kelly turns himself in at 1st District police headquarters in Chicago on Feb. 22, 2019.
By the end of the day, a total of 34 jurors had made it past the first round of questioning — about six shy of where the judge said he wanted to be before moving on to the next phase, which will involve prosecutors and defense attorneys using peremptory strikes to get to a final panel of 12 regular jurors and six alternates.
Kelly who has been in federal custody since his July 2019 arrest, gave a nod and a slight wave to the jury pool as his attorney introduced him. Some judges, faced with a prospective juror who is iffy about their neutrality, will try to “rehabilitate” them – reminding them of their civic duty to be fair, and asking pointedly if they can fulfill that obligation. But Leinenweber on Monday dismissed everyone who expressed even the tiniest doubts about their impartiality.“Thinking about the case and the charges over the weekend, I no longer firmly believe that I can be unbiased,” one woman said at the outset of the questioning.
Kelly’s lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, had asked the judge to automatically strike any juror who’d seen the documentary “for cause, saying the idea that they could remain impartial after such exposure “absurd.”Leinenweber, though, said he would instead try to drill down on any potential biases through further questioning.