By: Chris Cheng
FORT HOOD – Trial Judge Colonel Gregory Gross mulled over more than 350 questions that were submitted to him by both the defense and prosecution in accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan's pre-trial hearing.
The Article 39a Hearing began unusually late, Thursday, as Judge Gross met with both sides before to discuss the questions.
They are all part of a pretrial questionnaire to be sent to potential jury members for them to provide written answers that will help place a jury pool for the court martial.
During the hearing, the judge heard arguments from Hasan's lawyers on a range of questions that were dismissed from the questionnaire pool.
In the end, Judge Gross tossed out nearly two dozen questions because they were considered repetitive or were insignificant to the case.
While many of the questions were not discussed fully, the ones that were seemed to deal with potential panel member beliefs on capital punishment as well as the possible prejudice of jurors toward the Islamic faith.
The questionnaire is crucial to the jury selection process because it not only weeds out non-qualified panel members but it also helps both the defense and prosecution build their cases.
Recipients of the questionnaire will have until July 20 to submit their answers.
Many of these potential panel members will not be your average jury pool.
In a military court martial jurors need to hold a rank at or above the accused, so many in Hasan's trial will be majors and colonels.
Also addressed today, the defense was informed that the Army Court of Appeals had denied their motion to remove Colonel Gregory Gross as the trial judge.
The next pre-trial hearing is scheduled for July 25th at 10 a.m.
