{"id":50555,"date":"2020-11-04T13:07:20","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T20:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/redwine-lawyers-seek-info-about-background-checks-performed-on-potential-jurors\/"},"modified":"2020-11-04T20:07:20","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T20:07:20","slug":"redwine-lawyers-seek-info-about-background-checks-performed-on-potential-jurors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/redwine-lawyers-seek-info-about-background-checks-performed-on-potential-jurors\/","title":{"rendered":"Redwine lawyers seek info about background checks performed on potential jurors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mark
Mark Redwine exits the 6th Judicial District courtroom June 29, 2017, after an arraignment hearing. Mark Redwine\u2019s defense team wants to see all correspondences about the creation of an extensive background check on more than 1,000 potential jurors.<\/span>Terrance Siemon\/Special to the Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mark Redwine\u2019s defense lawyers want to know how and why a massive background check performed on potential jurors was created in the days leading up to the trial for the Vallecito man accused of killing his 13-year-old son, Dylan, in 2012.<\/p>\n

On Friday, it came to light that the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office created a document with background checks on more than 1,000 potential jurors<\/a> and provided it to 6th Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office prosecutors.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear when the Sheriff\u2019s Office provided the document to prosecutors. District Attorney Christian Champagne has maintained he turned over the document to the defense as soon as he received it from the Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Redwine\u2019s public defender, John Moran, said at a brief hearing Wednesday he was provided the background checks late Oct. 29, and he wasn\u2019t able review them until the next day, which he says gave prosecutors a two-day advantage with the information.<\/p>\n

Redwine\u2019s trial began Oct. 29 with jury selection, a process that is expected to take more than a week to sift through 2,625 potential jurors who were summoned to serve on the 12-person jury with two alternates in the highly publicized case.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been useful to have this information,\u201d Moran said.<\/p>\n

Moran also took issue with the private nature of some of the information included in the background checks.<\/p>\n

\"Moran
Moran in a file photo from 2017<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Champagne
Champagne in a file photo from 2017.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The document, Moran said, includes information on people if they were victims of child abuse, domestic violence or sexual assault. The data also indicate whether potential jurors are known to be suicidal, are the parents of runaway children or went through contentious divorces, among other issues.<\/p>\n

Champagne has maintained his office did not request the background checks, and says the Sheriff\u2019s Office created the document on its own accord. The Sheriff\u2019s Office has previously declined to comment about the situation, saying it did not want to interfere with the trial process.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Moran requested to see all correspondences between the District Attorney\u2019s Office and the Sheriff\u2019s Office, as well as the La Plata County Attorney\u2019s Office, concerning the background checks.<\/p>\n

Moran contends the background checks could potentially prejudice Redwine, as well as potential jurors.<\/p>\n

District Judge Jeffery Wilson, overseeing the case, granted Moran\u2019s request for the correspondences.<\/p>\n

Wilson, however, maintained the matter at hand is not a real issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not something that\u2019s going to affect the outcome of this trial,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI do not see \u2026 that you\u2019re prejudiced by anything that\u2019s gone on here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Thomas with the La Plata County Attorney\u2019s Office said he has no objection to releasing the \u201cbasic information,\u201d but that he was concerned some of the defense\u2019s request included private information.<\/p>\n

Champagne did not speak during Wednesday\u2019s hearing about the matter.<\/p>\n

In last week\u2019s hearing, Champagne accused Moran of making \u201cwild and reckless\u201d accusations of illegal and improper government conduct in an effort to \u201cprejudice this community,\u201d when in fact nothing nefarious had taken place.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo cast such an aspersion, I think it\u2019s unethical, I think Mr. Moran should be personally sanctioned,\u201d Champagne said.<\/p>\n

Moran brought up Champagne\u2019s charge of acting unethically at Wednesday\u2019s court hearing, but Wilson wanted no part of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you do outside of this case is not my concern,\u201d Wilson told Moran. \u201cTake issue with it in the correct form.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dylan
Dylan Redwine<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Jury selection was not livestreamed earlier this week for individual \u201cvoir dire,\u201d where lawyers question potential jurors one-on-one.<\/p>\n

Redwine was arrested in July 2017<\/a> after authorities accused him of killing Dylan in 2012 while the boy was on a court-ordered visit to his dad\u2019s home in Vallecito over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.<\/p>\n

Redwine faces two charges: second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. If convicted, Redwine faces up to 48 years in prison.<\/p>\n

Redwine has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheriff\u2019s Office ran searches on more than 1,000 residents reporting for jury duty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1078,133,168,519,28,4531,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6th-judicial-district","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-dylan-redwine","tag-headlines","tag-mark-redwine","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50555"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}