Via KHOU:
STEPHENVILLE, Texas – Jury selection is underway in the most high-profile trial Erath County has ever seen.
Eddie Routh, a 27-year-old Iraq War veteran, is charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield. The two men had taken the ex-Marine to a shooting range in an attempt to help him battle post-traumatic stress disorder and other personal demons.
Kyle’s memoir “American Sniper” is now an Academy Award-nominated movie.
Routh’s attorneys are planning to argue that he was insane. Many expect PTSD from his Iraq tour and a relief mission to earthquake-stricken Haiti to be another narrative thread in that defense.
Hundreds of potential jurors were screened Thursday at the courthouse in Stephenville. The majority were excused from the trial for a wide number of reasons.
The goal is to assemble an impartial jury–a task that seems difficult in a state where the Chris Kyle story is well known.