The jury that will hear the case against a former Tiger Transit driver charged with the rape and sodomy of an Auburn student on a Tiger Transit bus has been chosen.
The jurors will decide the case against Tony Patillo, who was charged in September 2017 with two first-degree counts of felony rape and sodomy. He also faces one count of public lewdness.
Fifteen jurors were selected, three of whom are alternates. The jury consists of 5 white women, 7 white men, two black men and one black woman.
District Attorney Brandon Hughes and Patillo's defense attorney, Jon Carlton Taylor, spent Monday and Tuesday questioning more than 60 potential jurors and striking jurors who couldn't hear the case impartially.
Among other questions, the lawyers asked the jurors if they had any preconceptions about Patillo's guilt or if they had read too much about the incident to decide Patillo's culpability impartially.
Lee County Circuit Judge Christopher Hughes is presiding over the case.
He instructed the selected jurors not to talk about the case with one another until deliberations begin after the case has been presented this week. They are also barred from discussing the case outside of the courtroom.
Defendant Tony Martin Patillo, of Columbus, Ga., speaks with his attorney inside Judge Christopher Hughes’ courtroom Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019, at the Lee County Justice Center during jury selection. Patillo is facing sex-related charges in connection to the sexual assault of an 18-year-old Auburn University student in fall 2017.
Judge Hughes told the jury to avoid reading or watching the news during their time on the jury.
James Johnson Jr., the other defendant in connection to the Tiger Transit case, faces similar charges of first-degree felony rape and first-degree felony sodomy. He is accused of being an accomplice in the crime.
The three jury alternates will sit on the jury throughout the trial, but they will not have a vote when deliberations begin.
Opening arguments will begin Wednesday morning at about 9:30 a.m. at the Lee County Justice Center in Opelika. The judge will hear several preliminary motions before the jury is sworn in.
The prosecution is expected to call few witnesses. The victim — who was an 18-year-old Auburn student at the time of the incident — is expected to testify, and prosecutors plan to show video evidence captured from Tiger Transit security cameras.
The defense plans to challenge the use of SkyBar video surveillance footage in the prosecution's evidence list. Defense attorneys said the SkyBar footage isn't relevant because Patillo wouldn't have seen what happened inside SkyBar leading up to his alleged encounter with the victim on the late-night Tiger Ten bus from downtown in September 2017.
Prosecutors and Auburn police say video evidence shows Patillo forcing the victim, who appeared to be incapacitated, to perform oral sex on him.
The Tiger Transit bus on which part of the alleged assault took place has four video cameras.
The video, according to testimony at a probable cause hearing in November 2017, shows Patillo guiding the victim from her seat on the front of the bus to the rear of the bus, where he allegedly assaulted her.
Prosecutors say Patillo later raped the victim in the back of the bus. He faces a first-degree rape charge because prosecutors plan to argue that the victim was helpless during the encounter. She did not have the capacity to consent because she was intoxicated, prosecutors plan to argue.
Police arrested Patillo and Johnson on Sept. 16, 2017, after the 18-year-old female transit passenger was found over homecoming weekend after taking a Tiger Ten late-night bus home from downtown.
Witnesses spotted Patillo standing over the victim on the side of the road near Aspen Heights Lane and Dekalb Street. After making several drives by, and noticing his pants were down, the witnesses called police noting that "something didn't feel right," according to testimony at the 2017 probable cause hearing.
Three additional public lewdness charges against Patillo were dropped before jury selection began because prosecutors said the four charges were related to only one incident. There were initially four charges because four witnesses said they saw Patillo with his pants down.
Johnson was identified as the driver of the Tiger Ten bus Patillo and the victim were riding on. Prosecutors said in court documents that Johnson turned off the bus lights and gave Patillo a warning before he turned the lights back on as another passenger got on the bus.
The incident prompted First Transit, the contractor that runs Tiger Transit and the late-night Tiger Ten service, to add security personnel to late-night buses.
Patillo's trial is expected to last less than a week. It isn't clear when Johnson's trial will be held.
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Chip Brownlee, senior in journalism and political science, is the editor-in-chief of The Auburn Plainsman.
