Jury selection in Chadron’s first murder trial in 13 years begins this morning at the Assumption Arena. Dawes County District Judge Travis O’Gorman has set aside 3-days for the trial of 20-year old Ian “Sage” Little Moon of Chadron.
Little Moon is charged with 1st-degree murder and felony use of a deadly weapon in the death of 72-year old John Martinez, who was in a relationship with Little Moon’s older sister
Concerns about finding jurors who remain unbiased despite the amount of local news coverage and community talk about the murder led Judge O’Gorman to call a pool of potential jurors about twice as large as normal.
Since the Dawes County Courthouse lacks the space for that many, Assumption Arena was secured for jury selection, a process that will be closed to the public.
The trial itself will be in the courthouse and open to the public, but when opening statements will be made and the first witness questioned depends on how long it takes to pick the jury. All sides hope it will be sometime tomorrow.
Little Moon is represented by County Public Defender Becca Chasek and the Nebraska Commission of Public Advocacy while Nebraska Assistant Attorney General Doug Warner is the lead prosecutor for County Attorney Vance Haug,
LIttle Moon is accused of going to the house shared by his sister, her 4 children, and Martinez – whom the children called their father – and shooting him in the head with an assault-style rifle as Martinez lay on a bed.
Little Moon fled Chadron, but was arrested a short time later on the Pine Ridge Reservation by Oglala Sioux tribal law enforcement.
The most recent Dawes County murder trial before this was in 2009 when former Chadron State student Joseph Hotz was convicted of stabbing his roommate, Kenneth Pfeiffer over 50 times in a drug-fuel paranoid rage in Dec 2008.