Miami – Jury selection for the trial of Mexican actor Pablo Lyle began in Miami on Tuesday, and is expected to officially begin at the end of this week or next.
The situation that is at the core of this case occurred in March 2019.
Lyle was charged with involuntary manslaughter after a traffic fight on Northwest 27th Avenue, near 14th Street, in which he punched his rival who ended up dead.
Police said Lyle’s brother-in-law, Lucas Del Fino, was driving to the airport when he cut off another vehicle driven by 63-year-old Juan Ricardo Hernandez.
Hernandez got out of his car and slammed his fist into the window of the car Lyle was in.
“We were very close to each other. We were both yelling at each other,” Del Fino said during a hearing in 2019. “I was yelling at him, ‘Don’t touch my car! Don’t hit my car!’ I told him in Spanish.”
That’s when the video shows Lyle getting out of the passenger seat and punching Hernandez, knocking him unconscious.
Hernandez was taken to the hospital but later died of his injuries.
Now, more than three years later, Lyle’s trial is preparing to begin.
On Tuesday, the judge was able to quiz potential jurors with input from lawyers as they worked to try to find the right group to sit down to hear this case.
But there were already some questions about whether jurors had broken the rules and were talking about the case.
“They were talking about the case, how they had seen it on the news,” a potential juror said.
Lyle’s attorney then asked the judge to remove the jury.
The judge did not end up eliminating that first group of potential jurors immediately but continued the questioning of all of them.
They will continue with that process until they can agree on a full set of jurors and alternates.