Dallas murder trial delayed due to shortage of potential jurors

A Dallas County murder trial set to go last Monday had to be postponed because of a shortage of potential jurors.

DALLAS - A Dallas County murder trial set to go last Monday had to be postponed because of a shortage of potential jurors.

Christopher McKinney Jr. was to stand trial for shooting Demondre Green in Uptown earlier this year. But a large number of trials starting on the same day and a small number of people answering a summons to appear for jury selection caused justice to be delayed.

The jury summons goes out to more than 7,000 Dallas County citizens each week and 2,700 every Monday.

The hope is 20 percent or 540 people will show up. Last Monday, less than 20 percent responded, which wasn’t enough to fill the pool for all the trials getting underway.

Police say on Feb. 19, Demondre Green was shot and killed allegedly over his car being parked too close to another vehicle. Days later, Christopher McKinney Jr. was arrested for Green’s murder. He admitted in a FOX 4 interview to being drunk and shooting.

“I just feel terrible, miss. I feel compassion for his family. I hate I took him away from his kids, his wife and his mother and his dad,” McKinney said. “I didn't want any of that to happen. That was terrible, you know. People think I'm a monster, but I'm nothing like that at all.”

McKinney was supposed go to trial last week in the 194th District Court. But justice was delayed because of a shortage of potential jurors.

Judge Dominique Collins presides over jury services.

“There were 16 calls for juries, so that means 16 different courts. Some felony, some misdemeanor had asked for juries,” Collins said.

And there weren’t enough potential jurors.

"So that room can get empty real quick. Then that day, there were 16 trials and, unfortunately

in the case of this murder case, they were number 14 out of 16,” Collins said. “So getting down to that amount of people, there weren’t enough left to get a good jury.”

The reasons for people not showing up are many.

“Out of 2,700, there’s gonna be some that come back to us, some that may get misled, forget people get sick, car problems,” Collins said. “I don’t know. Life happens to grown-ups.”

Others don't want to serve.

“Because of religious reasons, maybe moral reasons, maybe sometimes there’s things that touch a person emotionally and they cannot hear this type of trial,” Collins said. “Maybe not ever, but maybe specifically today so getting a jury’s kind of a tough thing.”

Judge Collins is calling on all of us to not to shirk our civic duty.

“The old folks used to say that if you’re not at the table, you might be on the menu,” he said. “I urge all of our citizens to come down here and help us with this process. People can’t get justice, whether it’s a defendant or a victim, they can’t get justice without jurors down here to help us.”

McKinney's murder trial is rescheduled until January 13.

An important note is there will not be any warrants issued for your arrest if you don't show up. No one will call you saying a warrant has been issued and you need to get them some cash. Do not fall for that scam.