Attorneys finished voir dire questioning for the first half of the jury pool seated in the courtroom by mid-day before starting the process over again with the second half of the jury pool, which was seated in the Hamilton County Courthouse’s basement for social distancing.

Attorneys need to whittle 44 potential jurors down to just 16 — 12 jurors and four alternates — before proceeding with opening statements and moving on to examine state witnesses.

Bassett, 34, is accused of killing girlfriend Andrea Sokolowski, 50, in a Webster City apartment at 639 1/2 Second St. in September 2018. The defendant has pleaded not guilty.

Defense attorney Michelle Wolf inquired about a wide variety of topics with the jury pool.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Assistant Attorney General Keisha Cretsinger questions the second half of the jury pool during voir dire for Zackery Bassett's first-degree murder trial in Webster City.

“In this case, the defense’s position is that law enforcement got it wrong,” Wolf said, evaluating how each juror was affiliated with or felt about law enforcement.

Topics and questions from Wolf included:

Whether jurors would be offended if defense attorneys aggressively questioned law enforcement officers on the witness stand.

Whether jurors thought law enforcement “gets it wrong” at times, and how often they think law enforcement might make mistakes.

Whether jurors think someone who is intoxicated acts the same as someone who is not intoxicated.

Whether jurors knew how long a no contact order typically stays in place.

How jurors felt about “speaking ill of the dead.”

Whether jurors thought everyone reacted the same way to the loss of a loved one, and how they might feel if such a reaction was suicidal ideation.

In continuing with the second half of the jury pool, Assistant Attorney General Keisha Cretsinger asked those with medical experience whether their knowledge might help them understand information from an autopsy and whether they would expound on the information presented with other jurors during deliberation.

In a pretrial hearing last March, defense attorneys objected to the state medical examiner’s report, in its entirety, being entered as evidence, calling it tainted by undue influence of domestic abuse allegations by police.

“It contains conclusions about domestic violence, none of which should be allowed in through that vehicle,” defense attorney Paul Rounds said last year. “(The medical examiner) made a conclusion based on non-medical findings.”

Asphyxiation was listed as the cause of death. The 2018 criminal complaint said that the examiner’s findings included hemorrhaging near the right carotid artery, petechial hemorrhage patterns around the eyes and face and contusions on the upper arms. Petechiae, pinpoint red spots, can be a sign of asphyxiation.

“It’s hard to separate the facts of (the state medical examiner’s) review of the body from the information she received (from law enforcement) about domestic violence,” Rounds said, telling the judge then that the report contained items well beyond the scope of a medical examiner’s practice.

Jury selection will continue today, when a final selection is likely to be completed.