Posted: 4:55 PM Jun 11, 2012
Reporter: Shannon Kantner

Fourteen people will decide the fate of two: Barbara Mercer and Richard Janish. The Jackson County couple is on trial for brutally murdering two men on Halloween last year.

"You have to be very careful that you get jurors who won't be impacted either rightly or wrongly by the grisly nature of the allegations," said Mercer's attorney George Lyons.

Mercer and Janish are accused of shooting and killing Anthony Hannah and Shemel Thomas, then setting fire to a vehicle with their bodies in it in a Grass Lake field.

"Choosing a jury for these types of facts is always difficult. It's a tragedy," Lyons said.

Both the defense and prosecution dismissed jurors for their own reasons. Some people had relatives who were police officers, some had already formed opinions about the case. Both sides wanted to make one point very clear: the victims, Hannah and Thomas, were known drug dealers.

Jackson County Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Mark Blumer asked jurors: "Does anyone think that because they were drug dealers it's OK to kill them? ... Anyone? That they were asking for it?"

No one said yes, but many people were candid about loved ones using drugs. Blumer also warned the jurors about the graphic evidence that could be expected during the trial.

"You're going to hear evidence in this case that after the two deaths occurred, the bodies were taken out into some federal forest land just outside of town, and they were burned almost beyond recognition," Blumer said in court.

Opening statements are scheduled to begin Tuesday morning.

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