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Trial for Norfolk police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter to start Monday

Posted at 11:38 AM, Sep 23, 2016
and last updated 2016-09-23 16:39:37-04

Norfolk police officer Michael Edington is charged in the deathof mentally ill Norfolk man, David Latham.

Edington is facing voluntary manslaughter charges and his trial is scheduled to begin Monday, September 26.

During a pretrial hearing Friday, defense and commonwealth attorneys discussed questions they plan to ask potential jurors.

Attorneys said a lot of focus is going to be on jurors' knowledge of recent police shootings across the country.

Edington's defense attorney said these questions are essential to find a fair and impartial jury.

Endington is accused of killing Latham back in 2014 after someone called police saying Latham pulled a knife on a family member.

When officers got to the scene, police say Latham refused to drop the knife, and that's when he was killed by Edington.

When it comes to his trial, legal analyst and attorney David Cardon told News 3, it may be hard to find jurors who are neutral.

"Jurors are people. They have interaction in our society, with the news, media, and everything else. It's impossible to find people who don't know anything about current events," Cardon said.

He says, it's up to attorneys to question potential jurors during jury selection to weed out anyone who can't be fair.

"That's the point of asking these questions. When you ask the questions, you're making a contract with the jurors that say this has been in the news a lot, you might even know about it. Can you be fair and impartial? Can you decide on the issues that come before you?" David added.

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