Lawyers for Winnipeg man accused of killing 4 women argue media coverage has tainted jury

The majority of the people selected to start hearing evidence in the trial of a man accused of murdering four women in Winnipeg shouldn’t be allowed to serve on the jury because they admitted they’d heard about the case before, an expert called by the accused’s defence team testified on Tuesday.A courtroom sketch shows Jeremy Skibicki sitting silently in the accused box near his lawyers on Monday, during the first day of his trial in the deaths of four women in Winnipeg.

It's the second motion the defence has made to stop the trial from being decided by a jury, after Manitoba Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal rejected a similar motion earlier this year.Jurors have not yet appeared in court during the trial, which started on Monday and is expected to last six weeks. They are expected to start hearing evidence on May 8.

Roughly two years ago, in mid-May, partial human remains later identified as belonging to Contois were discovered in a garbage bin near a Winnipeg apartment building. The following month, police recovered more of her remains from the Brady Road landfill in south Winnipeg. But beyond answering yes or no questions that included whether they had heard anything about the case, potential jurors were not asked how much coverage or what specific information they'd seen.While jurors were given detailed instructions that included forbidding them from considering facts outside of what's presented in court during the trial — including media coverage — Ruva said that's not sufficient to ensure impartiality.

Ninety-five per cent of respondents had either a strong or somewhat negative opinion of Skibicki, while 81 per cent said they believe he is guilty. Court heard on Monday from Quito Maggi, the president of Mainstreet Research, who testified he's confident the poll his firm conducted used a sample representative of both Winnipeg and Manitoba.Prosecutors continued to try to poke holes in the defence's motion, questioning the relevance of Ruva's testimony because it's based on research focused on the legal system in the United States.

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