PARK CITY, Utah — Kouri Richins was present in the Park City courtroom on Tuesday as jury selection began for her murder trial.
Richins is accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Eric, with fentanyl in March 2022.
A tedious questioning process took place during the first day of jury selection. The challenge has been giving Richins a fair trial with Summit County being so small, and attorneys were focused on finding any little detail that could indicate bias on the case.
To start off, the judge asked each potential juror four questions: if they've heard about the case in the media, if they did any online research about the case, if they discussed the case with anyone else, and if they recognized anyone in the courtroom.
From there, the defense and prosecution took over, asking them personal questions like what they did for work, personal interactions with law enforcement, how they feel about the legal system, and whether or not those answers would impact their ability to serve on the jury.
Occasionally, the judge would interrupt if he felt the questions weren't being asked fairly.
The defense made it a point to ask almost every candidate whether Richins' decision to testify or not would impact their ability to reach a fair verdict.
At the end of questioning, the defense and prosecution would decide whether or not they wanted to pass that candidate or strike them. They would strike if the person admitted to researching the case, there was a conflict of interest, or their answers worried them about not approaching the trial fairly.
The judge had the final say on who would be moving forward with the process.
The court heard from more than 25 potential jurors on Tuesday. They were instructed to not discuss the case until they get excused and should get an email next week saying whether or not they were selected.
It's looking to be a very long trial with at least 46 potential witnesses and may last up to five weeks.
WATCH: Arguments raised over public access to jury selection
Tuesday also involved arguments over whether the jury selection process be open to the public and the news media.
FOX 13 News learned late Monday that the judge was planning to close the courtroom for the entirety of jury selection, so we filed a motion to keep it open.
David Reymann is the attorney representing FOX 13. We spoke to him after he addressed the judge.
"We alerted the court to our objection and sent the court a letter saying that we objected to closure of that portion because the public has a First Amendment right of access to jury selection," Reymann said. "There are certain portions of jury selection that involve very sensitive privacy concerns that can be closed, but the large majority of the proceedings should be open, and so that's what we wanted to ensure happened."
Reymann explained the process for handling sensitive questions during jury selection.
"If a juror is asked a question that requires an answer that gets into something very personal, the juror can affirmatively say, 'I would prefer to only have the lawyers and the court present and the parties present for that answer,'" Reymann said. "And if a juror requests that, then the court generally has good cause to receive that answer in a closed session."
The default is to allow journalists and the public in the courtroom, but cameras are not allowed during jury selection. That's a step to safeguard the jurors' identities. Then, once the trial starts, there are rules prohibiting news outlets from broadcasting or publishing images of the jurors.
