Dixon Jury Seated

Update

After two grueling days of questioning, a jury has been seated in the trial for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon.

The jury is made up of nine women and three men.  Eight of the jurors are black, three are white and there is one Asian.  The court also decided to seat six alternates, up from four.  The alternates are made up of three women and three men.  All are black.

Earlier in the day, Judge Dennis Sweeney had said, "A disaster would have to happen this afternoon for us not to pick a jury."

Court will not be in session Wednesday because of the Veteran's Day Holiday.  Judge Sweeney says he expects opening statments to begin Thursday morning.

ABC2 News Brian Kuebler will have live reports on today's jury selection on ABC2 News at 5 & 6.  And stay with abc2news.com for the latest developments in this case.

Update

After a day and a half of whittling down the biggest jury pool allowed by law, attorneys and the judge in the Dixon case were able to pick a jury panel of 60. The next step will be final jury selection which attorneys say shouldn't take nearly as long.

After releasing the remaining 19 potential jurors from the original pool, one member said, "Thank You Jesus." It was a long and grueling process to get to the final panel of 60 citizens. "When we hit 60 we said that's enough," said Judge Dennis Sweeney. "Given this case," he continued, "we wanted to over due."

The next step will be what is called final jury selection. At 1:30 this afternoon, both the prosecutor and defense team for Mayor Sheila Dixon will build a jury of 12 and four alternates. Each side will have four pre-emptive strikes along with some other strikes to determine the alternates.

Attorneys we spoke to this afternoon say final jury selection should not take nearly as long as the original phase.

Judge Sweeney said, "A disaster would have to happen this afternoon for us not to pick a jury."

Judge Sweeney also said the trial should start Thursday morning.