She said she couldn't judge an accused murderer because of her religious beliefs and with that the first jury in the murder trial of Gilbert Martinez was dismissed.
Presiding justice John Gonzalez dismissed the entire jury but told the juror she had to present a letter from her church. She did that today and avoided an arrest for contempt of court.
With that out of the way, a new jury was empanelled and Martinez's murder trial began today. It should have been smooth sailing but things went downhill quickly when the first person on the stand, the prosecution's star witness, said he saw nothing. Norman Ciau testified that on the night of the murder September 14th, 2002 he was at the barbecue when he heard the victim Benjamin Ku arguing with the Gilbert Martinez - the man accused of killing him. But that's only what he heard and the next thing he saw was Ku laying on the ground suffering from a stab wound with two men standing over him - none of those men were the accused.