CBS13 interviews Professor Joe about voir dire in Golden State Killer case

Finding potential jurors without preconceptions about the infamous East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer case might be a challenge when suspect Joseph DeAngelo goes on trial in Sacramento, Professor Irene Joe told Sacramento’s CBS13.

Joe, an expert on jury selection, told the news station it might be hard to “find a group of individuals who haven’t already formed an opinion, if not about the entire case … (then) at least about parts of it.”

DeAngelo, 72, of Citrus Heights, is accused of 13 counts of murder and 13 counts of kidnapping to commit a robbery.

The East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer is believed to have committed more than 50 rapes, 100 burglaries and at least 13 murders across 10 California counties between 1975 and 1986.

Authorities did not pursue dozens of other potential charges against DeAngelo because of statutes of limitations. The statute of limitations for rape in California was 10 years until it was lifted in 2017.

Born in Nigeria, Irene Oritseweyinmi Joe has a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She has clerked with Judge Napoleon Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California and served as assistant special litigation counsel at the Orleans Public Defenders in New Orleans, assistant training director with the Louisiana Public Defender Board, and Binder Teaching Fellow at UCLA School of Law.  Her interests as a legal scholar include the development of theoretical frameworks for reshaping under-resourced criminal justice institutions.