Death penalty trial jurors to be selected this morning

Billy Hobbs, The Union-Recorder, Milledgeville, Ga.
·1 min read

Sep. 17—CAIRO, Ga. — A 12-person jury is expected to be selected this morning in Grady County Superior Court in the long-awaited death penalty trial of Donnie Russell Rowe Jr.

Additionally, five other people will be selected as alternates.

Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III said he anticipated that process taking only about an hour or so.

Jurors will be chosen from a 56-member group of prospective jurors. It's one less than the original 57 because attorneys on both sides agreed to it, Barksdale said during a telephone interview Thursday night with The Union-Recorder.

Once the trial jury and alternates have been selected, they will be dismissed until Sunday when they will be taken by bus from Cairo to Putnam County.

Opening statements are expected to start at 9 a.m. Monday in Putnam County Superior Court in Eatonton. Testimony will begin after attorneys on both sides spell out what they believe the evidence and facts of the case will prove.

Testimony could last up to three weeks, court officials say.

Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Chief Judge Brenda H. Trammell will preside over the death penalty trial.

Rowe and co-defendant Ricky Dubose, are accused of gunning down Sgt. Curtis Billue and Sgt. Christopher Monica aboard a Georgia Department of Corrections transport bus on June 13, 2017. The two men later escaped from the bus. The shootings of the state corrections officers and subsequent escape was witnessed by more than two dozen other inmates on the bus at the time.

Dubose will be tried separately sometime next year.