Judge rejects Gillis delays

• By JOE GYAN JR.
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jun 6, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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A state judge rejected a passionate request Thursday from defense lawyers for a five-month delay and ruled that the capital murder trial of serial killer suspect Sean Vincent Gillis will begin Monday in Baton Rouge as planned.

Gillis’ attorneys told state District Judge Bonnie Jackson they will ask the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal to review her ruling. The judge gave them until 5 p.m. today to do so.

“This case needs to go forward. I’m not going to delay the trial,’’ she said following an afternoon hearing. A bespectacled Gillis, dressed in an orange and white striped East Baton Rouge Parish Prison jumpsuit, attended the hearing but never spoke.

Kerry Cuccia and Steven Lemoine, who are representing Gillis, argued that they and their medical experts need more time to complete and evaluate psychological testing performed on Gillis. One such test is scheduled today.

“It is not responsible to proceed at this point,’’ Lemoine told the judge.

“Asking us to go forward on Monday is like going on a safari without knowing what you’re hunting’’ and what weapon to bring, Cuccia added. “It puts the integrity of the criminal justice system in harm’s way. Mr. Gillis should not be penalized.’’

The prosecution and defense will try to pick a jury from the 249 jury questionnaires filled out and returned by prospective jurors. Cuccia said 242 of those people indicated that psychological and psychiatric information is an important consideration.

But prosecutor Prem Burns and Jackson said Gillis’ defense team has ample medical data already in hand to decide how to proceed and whether to stand by their not guilty plea or enter a dual plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.

Burns, who noted that the strangulation death of 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston, Gillis’ arrest and the indictment for the murder all occurred in 2004, said it is time for jury selection to begin Monday.

“This case is over four years old. At this point there is no reason for further delay,’’ she told Jackson.

The judge said it is expected to take three weeks to pick a jury “if we’re lucky,’’ which she reasoned gives Gillis’ medical experts plenty of time to complete and evaluate the test results and render their opinions. The tests include a brain wave test, an MRI and sleep studies.

Dorothy Lewis, a psychiatrist and Yale University professor who is trying to diagnose Gillis’ psychiatric condition for the defense, already has said in one report that Gillis’ history of migraines partly suggests an “underlying neurologic abnormality and may in part account for some of his violent acts.’’

Gillis has confessed to killing eight south Louisiana women between 1994 and 2004 and has been booked in seven of those deaths. A probe into the eighth slaying is ongoing.