Jury seated for 2nd Sapry murder-insanity trial, set to begin Tuesday

LACONIA — Jury selection in the second murder trial of Hassan Sapry is complete. 

Trial is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, Aug. 19, in Belknap County Superior Court. 

Sapry, 27, is charged with nine counts including first- and second-degree murder, stemming from the 2019 death of Wilfred Guzman Sr., then 57, on Blueberry Lane. He’s represented by attorneys Mark Sisti and Amy Ashworth of Sisti Law Offices. 

Jury selection continued through Monday. On Friday afternoon, the court had designated 13 to serve for what is anticipated to be a two- or three-week-long trial. 

Sapry stood before the court in 2022, but the trial was halted after several days of testimony and before the defense presented their theory of the case, when Belknap Superior Judge Elizabeth Leonard ruled a mistrial for undisclosed reasons. Now, almost exactly three years later, the second trial is imminently underway. 

Prosecutors and defense attorneys were looking for 16 individuals from a jury pool of over 100 people to serve for the trial. Of those 16, four will serve as alternates come Tuesday morning. 

“Sixteen,” Leonard said just after 11 a.m. Monday, after the final juror was selected. “OK.”

Jury selection began on Aug. 11, and it took all of 5.5 days to round out the group poised to determine Sapry’s fate.

The State of New Hampshire is represented by seasoned prosecutors Alexander Kellermann and Jeffery Strelzin. They must prove to the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, Sapry committed the crimes of which he’s accused.

If successful, Sisti told potential jurors he, Ashworth and Sapry intend to raise the affirmative not guilty by reason of insanity defense. They’ll have to prove to jurors, to a clear and convincing standard, Sapry was legally insane at the time the alleged acts occurred. 

Over the last week, defense attorneys and prosecutors questioned potential jurors, one by one. In every case, Sisti told them his team's defense would include information regarding mental diseases like post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, and stressed the effects growing up in war-torn Baghdad, Iraq, had on a young Sapry.

Prosecutors, throughout jury selection, told potential jurors that, while the insanity defense is legitimate under New Hampshire law, it is an affirmative defense and not necessarily legitimate in every case. They asked potential jurors if they’d be equipped to use reason and parse truth from fiction. 

In an affirmative defense, the defendant bears the burden of proof, under New Hampshire law, but is held to a lower standard.

Sapry and his family immigrated to the United States, and he attended school in Laconia. Sapry apparently knew the victim, having had a friendly relationship with him and his daughter. Sisti asked potential jurors if they had hard feelings regarding immigrants and refugees or Iraqis or Muslims. Most said they didn’t hold prejudices against those individuals, but some said they did.

Sapry "was one of the guys that was in the street, OK?” Sisti said when questioning a potential juror who had experience in the Middle East. “Basically, as a little kid, trying to get by.” 

At the beginning of proceedings Monday morning, Leonard told attorneys on both sides that, if they proceeded through the day without reaching 16 jurors, she was still inclined to move forward with the trial as planned. 

“We have a jury,” Leonard said, noting 13 jurors had already been selected. “I’d prefer to have four alternates just in case.”

Strelzin told Leonard there’s a possibility they could lose jurors as the trial progressed, a situation not uncommon in murder trials, and the state’s strategy on jury selection was informed by the notion they’d seek four alternates in addition to the 12 jurors sworn to service. Sisti agreed and told Leonard that, if at any point throughout the trial the jury was reduced to less than 12 people, he and Ashworth would likely pursue a dismissal.

“Let’s just hope that we get three more people,” Leonard said. 

And so they did — first, the 14th at 10:43 a.m., then the 15th, 10 minutes later. The final juror was selected around 11:15 a.m.