Jury selected for former Balch Springs officer's civil rights trial
BALCH SPRINGS, Texas - Former Balch Springs Police Officer Roy Oliver is back in a Dallas federal court for an excessive force/ wrongful death trial.
Oliver was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the murder of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards when he answered a disturbance call in April 2017.
In court on Monday, Oliver paid close attention as potential jurors were questioned about whether they had biases for or against police and whether they could be fair and impartial. A jury was selected by the end of the day.
"You're trying to strike the people who are going to be least favorable to your case," explained attorney Geoff J. Henley, who is not involved in the case. "And so you're asking questions to try and ferret out what their biases are."
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Ex-Balch Springs Officer Roy Oliver denied appeal for murder of Jordan Edwards
Former Balch Springs police officer Roy Oliver, who was convicted of murdering 15-year-old Jordan Edwards in 2017, will not get a new trial.
Oliver was found guilty of murder in 2018 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The officer fired his rifle five times as the car Jordan was a passenger in was pulling away from a Balch Springs house party police were called to because of noise.
Oliver maintained he was trying to protect another officer. The jurors will have to put themselves in the position of Oliver at the time of the shooting."
Appeals court upholds ex-Balch Spring officer’s murder conviction
"Position themselves in what he was seeing, doing, hearing, smelling, if you will, at the time," Henley said. "And without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and under conditions that are always considered to be rapid, evolving and requiring a split-second type decision."
Jordan was hit by the assault rifle gunfire. He was shot in the back of the head.
Henley says for the Edwards family and their attorney…
"I want that jury whomever it is to understand the immeasurable loss that is but be able to put a monetary award on that difficult-to-measure damage component," he said.
Jurors will begin seeing the evidence and hearing from witnesses.
"The big thing that I think the plaintiffs have going for them is that they've got cops who will testify against another cop and from what I've gathered," Henley said. "That is something they had both at the criminal case, and that's big. That's huge."
This trial will have 8 jurors. Whatever their decision is has to be unanimous.