If Dennis Rader wants a trial by jury, it likely won't begin Monday.
Although Rader's trial is scheduled to begin
Monday, no special requests have been put in to provide a jury for the man
charged as Wichita's infamous BTK serial killer, officials at the Sedgwick
County Courthouse said Tuesday.
If Rader wants the state to prove its case
against him, he may have to wait for another day. In every high-profile
murder case in recent years, hundreds of jurors have been called in for
questioning. They have been asked to fill out detailed questionnaires to
test whether pretrial notoriety and emotions within the community would
effect their ability to give the defendant a fair trial.
That step hasn't been taken yet in Rader's case.
"We haven't had any special requests," said
Linda Marvin, jury coordinator for Sedgwick County.
Judge Greg Waller, who is presiding over the
case, said if there had been any such arrangements made, "it would be in the
court file, and it's not in the court file."
Yet Rader is scheduled to be in court Monday,
and the Sedgwick County district attorney's office has notified family
members of BTK victims about the proceeding.
That could mean that Rader may be
contemplating a plea or waiving his right to a jury trial. If he decides to
ask for a trial by jury, that could result in a delay of months.
Legal experts say it's unlikely that either
lawyers or the judge would allow Rader to go to trial without similar
safeguards of rights afforded to defendants in cases that have generated
less notoriety.
But then, Rader's case has followed few of
the usual procedures.
"The talk around the courthouse is that
nobody knows what's going on in this case," said
Jim Pratt, a Wichita criminal defense lawyer. "There have been
none of the usual motions filed. There's been no jury questionnaire. I tried
a much smaller case in another county and I got a 10-page jury
questionnaire."
More than 500 jurors were called in for the
2002 murder trial of Jonathan and Reginald Carr -- the most recent case that
comes close to drawing the attention of Rader's. Last year, jurors filled
out questionnaires months in advance of the capital murder trial of Douglas
Belt.
And neither of those generated as much
interest as Rader's case, arguably the most notorious in Kansas history.
A request for a delay is an informal step
that usually needs only a phone call to prosecutors and the trial judge, and
doesn't require coming to court.
Still, Rader is scheduled to be in court at 9
a.m. Monday.
Rader may not even be telling his defense
team his wishes. When he called a Wichita television station recently from
the Sedgwick County Jail, he revealed little. In excerpts from an interview
aired this week on KSN, Channel 3, Rader did not say what he plans to do in
court next week. Mostly, he complained that he thinks mail to him from other
media outlets has been withheld.
There has been speculation in the legal
community that the lack of action in the case may mean that his lawyers want
to have Rader's mental state examined. The laws that governed insanity pleas
were more lenient at the times of the crimes with which Rader is charged.
Rader would have to be mentally competent to
assist in his defense, including any decision to change his plea.
During a spring arraignment, the 60-year-old
former compliance officer from Park City stood mute, and Waller entered a
plea of not guilty.
If Rader decides to change his plea, he could
go one of two ways. He could plead no contest, which means he doesn't admit
guilt but recognizes the state has enough evidence to convict him. Or he
could plead guilty.
A no-contest plea would result in District
Attorney Nola Foulston having to provide Waller a detailed summary of
evidence against Rader, charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder
spanning from 1974 to 1991.
By entering a guilty plea, Rader could
control the amount of information released during the hearing. He could
admit to the basic information in the complaint, without elaboration.
Rader could also decide to waive his right to
a jury and let Waller decide the case in a bench trial. But lawyers say
there would be no advantage in Rader requesting a bench trial.
Either way, Rader may not escape a jury.
Under the law that applied in 1991, Rader can
face the so-called Hard 40 prison sentence if he's convicted of the killing
that year of Delores Davis. That year, Hard 40s were required to be decided
by jury, much like the death penalty is today. The Hard 40 is a sentence of
40 years to life.
Rader was arrested in February, following an
investigation that baffled Wichita police for decades. He was charged as the
killer who called himself BTK, for the way he would "bind, torture and kill"
his victims.
