The final juror was selected Wednesday in the case of Robert Crimo III, setting the stage for next week’s trial of the man accused in the Highland Park mass shooting almost three years ago.
The panel’s final member was selected on the third day of jury selection. The juror is a medical technician who said she hadn’t followed the Crimo case since its early days in 2022, but added, “We all assumed he was guilty.”
However, she told Lake County prosecutors and Crimo’s defense team that she could set her initial opinion aside and listen objectively to the evidence.
Crimo did not attend Wednesday morning’s session. A guard told Judge Victoria Rossetti that he had checked on Crimo earlier Wednesday and the defendant indicated he did not plan to come to court.
He missed parts of the first two days of jury selection, attending in the morning but not returning to court in the afternoons. The judge, noting that she had admonished Crimo that the proceedings would continue whether he attended or not, moved ahead with jury selection.
Now that the panel of six men and six women has been seated, the attorneys were moving on to picking six alternate jurors who would hear the evidence but would not deliberate on the verdict unless one of the regular jurors was not able to participate. The first alternate was selected before the noon lunch break.
The panel is expected to hear evidence that will be presented beginning Monday, and over the next three to five weeks, against Crimo. He is accused of accessing the roof of a building in downtown Highland Park on July 4, 2022, and firing on the crowd assembled for the city’s Independence Day parade. The shooting killed seven people and injured more than 40 others.
Crimo was arrested later that day after he was identified as a suspect. He has since remained in the Lake County jail.
