Jury selection in Sapry murder-insanity trial could end Friday

LACONIA — Jury selection in the second murder trial of Hassan Sapry inched ever closer to conclusion on Thursday afternoon, when attorneys agreed on their 13th juror. 

They’ll need 16 members of the jury pool to serve during trial — 12 on the jury and four alternates. On Thursday morning, they’d already selected seven. By noon, they’d selected 12, and after their mid-day recess, they selected another. 

Jury selection is scheduled to continue on Friday morning in Belknap County Superior Court.

Sapry, 27, is charged with nine offenses, including first- and second-degree murder, in the 2019 death of Wilfred Guzman Sr. in Laconia. His first prosecution, in 2022, ended in a mistrial. He’s been awaiting the second trial for about three years.

Indictments are allegations. Sapry is innocent until proven guilty. 

He’s represented by Mark Sisti and Amy Ashworth, attorneys with Sisti Law Offices. They’ve both got long records of practicing criminal defense in New Hampshire — Ashworth previously served as the managing attorney in the Belknap and Carroll County Public Defender Office, and Sisti has represented defendants in high profile criminal cases since 1979.

Representing the interest of the State of New Hampshire are Jeffery Strelzin and Alexander Kellermann, highly experienced in their own rights. Strelzin is back at the state Attorney General’s Office — where he previously served for 22 years — after leaving in 2022, to serve as assistant United States attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire. 

Each side has a different burden of proof in the trial, scheduled to begin on Tuesday, Aug. 19. Prosecutors must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, Sapry committed the alleged crimes. If they’re successful, Sisti and Ashworth intend to mount a defense with a claim of not guilty by reason of insanity, an affirmative defense they must prove in their own right — in New Hampshire, a defendant is presumed to be sane unless the opposite is proven.   

“We take that burden seriously,” Sisti told a potential juror Thursday morning. “The state has a much higher burden than we do during the trial, they have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

On Thursday, attorneys representing both Sapry and the state paid particular attention to potential jurors’ opinions regarding an insanity defense, and teased out any preconceived notions members of the jury pool may have brought with them into the courtroom. Some expressed skepticism regarding the validity of such a defense, others explained they didn’t know much about it and would require information and court instruction, and yet others asserted their disbelief in the notion and discomfort serving on a jury in such a case.

Sisti told potential jurors they’d be interrogating Sapry’s past, going back to his childhood in Baghdad, Iraq, at the height of a military conflict there, and they’d need to view difficult material, including photographs at the crime scene, and listen to the testimony of witnesses.

“Photographs at the scene, they’re not pleasant, they’re beyond horrible,” Sisti told one potential juror on Thursday morning.

A number of potential jurors told attorneys and the court they were personally interested in stories about crime, and would look forward to serving on the jury. Several noted they’re fans of “true crime” podcasts and other media. Those potential jurors tended not to be selected.

“You have been chosen to be a juror in this case,” Belknap Superior Judge Elizabeth Leonard told the last person interviewed, at around 2:43 p.m.