Twenty months and five days after he allegedly murdered his girl friend, JoAnn Crystal Harris, and her unborn baby, all of the pieces finally are in place for National Guard veteran Scott A. Ansman to stand trial.
If jury selection can be completed on Friday, testimony could begin as early as Monday in the courtroom of Judge H. Charles Horn Jr., who is new to the case.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Attorneys for both sides, who have been sparring and jockeying for position in front of Judge James R. Dabney for nearly a year, told the judge this morning that they are ready to go. Prosecutor Joe Markus probably has been ready since at least last spring, about the time that public defender Nan Whitfield came to the Ansman case in relief of the soldier’s first set of lawyers.
Ms. Whitfield and Mr. Markus strongly preferred to have Judge Dabney supervise the trial, mainly because he knows the players and the nuances as clearly as they do.
However, his schedule has been bogged down with a separate trial. At 10 o’clock, he ordered the case transferred to Judge Horn.
Previously, it was announced that the backup plan was to put the case in the courtroom of Judge Stephanie Sautner, a tough arbiter. Informally and in robes, she entered Judge Dabney’s territory this morning, and they briefly consulted out of hearing range. Apparently, her mission was to state her unavailability.
Preliminary Rituals
Did either side catch a perceived break with the Judge Horn assignment? Not clear yet, said courtroom observers.
Judge Horn summoned the two lawyers to his quarters for a 25-minute off-the-record session before returning to the bench and laying out the jury-selection groundwork.
Mr. Ansman, a modest-sized 15-year Guard veteran who loved the always-present sense of strict discipline of the military, faces two counts of murder with special circumstances. Conviction carries a maximum sentence of life without parole.
He has been incarcerated since Friday, Aug. 24, when he telephoned the Culver City Police Dept. from the Culver City Armory, his home base, around 4 in the afternoon, to report a dead body on the gymnasium floor.
The exact contents of the bizarre call have not yet been divulged.
Mr. Ansman has been in custody ever since.
Changing Clothes for a New Look
When he appeared in Judge Dabney’s courtroom this morning, he was in his jailhouse jumpsuit, as he has been for scores of hearings.
But an hour and a half later when he entered the trial atmosphere before Judge Horn, he was seen in civilian clothes publicly for the first time since the bloody, brutalized body of Ms. Harris was recovered.
Looking as if he just had strode into the Airport Courthouse off the street, Mr. Ansman, unshackled, was attired in a freshly pressed, short-sleeved royal blue shirt and dark trousers.
As is their custom, the mother of the victim and the mother of the defendant took their preferred, poles-apart seats in the new courtroom by following the pattern established before Judge Dabney.
Choosing aisle seats, they sit at opposite ends of the spectator gallery from each other, never, externally, betraying their true feelings. Marilyn Ansman always is alone. Martha Lou Harris, typically, is in the company of family members, as she was this morning, with her son, Gerald Bennett.
