Jurors from Oktibbeha County are selected for Jessica Chambers Murder Trial

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- Almost four years ago Jessica Chambers was killed in Courtland.

Quinton Tellis stood trial for the murder last October.

That case ended in a mistrial after a Panola County jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

Prosecutors are gearing up for a new trial with a new jury. That jury will come from Oktibbeha County.

Monday the Oktibbeha County courthouse filled up with people reporting for duty, Jury Duty. And with a few hundred summonses sent out how does the pool get narrowed down to 12 people?

“Obviously, you want a jury to be fair and to listen and to be willing to take the facts and apply them to the law. You don’t want a jury that feels like whatever they say doesn’t matter you don’t want to jury that feels like you’re automatically guilty just because you’re sitting there,” said Jeff Hosford.

When selecting a jury the goal is to find people who don’t know about the crime, but in some cases that can be challenging.

“with a very high profile case like this case you may end up with people that do you know about it and the question then is can you still be fair and impartial even though you know these things,” said Hosford.

Sometimes life experiences can color a person’s attitude toward a particular case.

“If they had something bad that occurred in their life or someone passed away because of another individual, murder,” said Hosford. “They may not feel like they can be fair and impartial in this case; they may say that they can’t. For example, they may have had somebody that was charged with murder, but they didn’t think was guilty of murder, and they say well I can’t because I don’t think that person is guilty.  I think he’s just charged because of whatever. That doesn’t reflect in this case, but that’s the general statement that you sometimes get from jurors.”

Both the prosecution and defense try to find people they think will be open to hearing their arguments.

“Obviously the prosecutor wants 12 people that think the person is guilty, and the defendant wants 12 people that think the person is innocent. You start asking other questions about like where you work, what you do for a living, where you grow up, education level;  those kind of things come into play depending on which side you’re on,” said Hosford.

Around 120 showed up for the jury pool. The jury will go to Batesville where they will be sequestered for the duration of the trial.