After three long days of jury selection in Unalaska, court officials will return to Anchorage to restart their search and begin the trial for a young man involved in a fatal 2019 car crash.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews told the court Friday afternoon that after questioning around 100 people this week, they could not find enough local impartial jurors.
“The order of this court, at this point, is that we will now transfer venue to Anchorage for trial to commence on March 24 as previously scheduled,” Matthews said.
According to police, in May of 2019, Dustin Ruckman, a high schooler at the time, was driving his truck on Unalaska’s Mount Ballyhoo when it plummeted down the side of the mountain.
Ruckman told police he was thrown from the truck. Two high school girls, Karly McDonald, 16, and Kiara R. Haist, 18, were in the vehicle when it fell nearly 900 feet down the cliff. They both died in the crash.
Ruckman faces two counts of criminally negligent homicide. Jury selection for the long-awaited trial started Wednesday morning in Unalaska, after being delayed several times over the past six years.
The court needs to find 16 people to sit on the jury, which includes four alternates.
According to the judge, the court summoned 400 Unalaskans for jury service at the beginning of the year. That’s the normal amount they summon, he said. A little over half of those responded and were qualified, which is a typical ratio.
Potential jurors were dismissed for a number of reasons including work schedules, medical and travel plans and concern over whether they could fairly judge the trial. Most people questioned in the courtroom knew about the incident to some extent, through pretrial publicity and by word of mouth.
Ultimately, the court only found seven qualified jurors. Matthews ended the jury selection process prematurely after determining they didn’t have enough residents left in the pool.
“Mathematically, we reached the point a little bit ago where it was clear to me that despite the efforts that everyone here put in, it simply was not possible for us to see a fair and impartial jury in Unalaska for this case due to nobody's fault,” Matthew said.
Ruckman’s attorney Julia Moudy’s previous motions to change the venue to Anchorage were denied. Matthews said it was important to at least attempt to find a local jury and said he was up for the challenge.
“It was significant in this case, particularly given the impact that this case has had on everybody involved and on the community at large that we make an effort,” Matthews said. “So I denied the motions to change venue, and I set about a process in which we would come out here and question as many people as we could to determine whether or not we could get a fair and impartial jury.”
He said he expects the trial to last three weeks. Jury selection will start on Tuesday, March 25 in Anchorage, according to the Alaska Court System.
