Esteban Carpio sits impassive at the defense table as jurors are chosen in his murder trial for the shooting death of Detective Sgt. James L. Allen.

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 8, 2006

BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- A jury was seated in Superior Court yesterday in the trial of Esteban Carpio, who is charged with shooting to death Providence police Detective Sgt. James L. Allen.

Opening arguments are scheduled to begin this morning, and a long parade of potential witnesses as varied as Police Chief Dean M. Esserman and Samein Soul Phin, Carpio's girlfriend and the mother of his son, is waiting in the wings.

It has not been decided whether Carpio, who contends that he was insane at the time of the alleged crime and cannot be held responsible, will take the stand in his own defense.

"That's his decision at the end," said his lead lawyer, Robert L. Sheketoff. "That's something that he does not have to decide until the last second."

Carpio, 27, a onetime barber who has a criminal record, sat stoic at the defense table throughout the half-day of court. He wore the same clothes that he wore for the first day of jury selection Tuesday.

He seldom moved during the three-hour session, blinking his heavy-lidded eyes every so often as he stared straight ahead, his face impassive, with the soles of his feet flat on the floor and his hands in his lap.

He was flanked by his two lawyers, and even when they leaned over in front of him to confer about a potential juror, Carpio did not seem to react.

When deputy sheriffs brought Carpio into the courtroom from his cell at the Adult Correctional Institutions, and again when he was taken out, he appeared to limp. He fractured a bone in his left leg and suffered other injuries when he dropped out of a window at police headquarters after having shot Allen, according to police and medical testimony in previous court proceedings.

Carpio faces four charges, including murder, in the death of the 50-year-old Allen and the stabbing of an elderly woman in April 2005. He is accused of wresting away the detective's gun during questioning about the stabbing at police headquarters and then shooting him twice.

Sixteen jurors have been picked -- 11 women and 5 men -- but only 12 are required to hear the case. Four will be designated as alternates in case any of the others drop out.

The jurors include two nurses, a jewelry store employee, a man who said he is retired from the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, a religious order, a supervisor of a large call center, a recreation therapist for the Massachusetts Department of Retardation and an employee of City State Computers, which has a contract with the City of Providence that occasionally takes him to police headquarters to fix equipment.

Also on the jury are a woman whose husband is a radiation oncologist and her son, a lawyer; a woman who said she knows some police officers; and a woman whose late father was a Providence police officer, who did contract work as a paralegal for the attorney general's office and who worked for six months in the Department of Corrections' work-release program.

Among those excused from serving yesterday were a woman who said she could not handle gruesome evidence; the wife of a retired Warren police officer who said she could not be a fair juror; and a City of Providence park ranger.

Judge Robert D. Krause notified the jury that the trial will take most, if not all, of the rest of the month.

The state has more than 100 potential witnesses lined up but might call as few as 30 to 40. They include police officers, emergency medical technicians, crime lab analysts, medical personnel, an FBI agent who helped to capture Carpio after he escaped police custody, and correctional officers.

Sheketoff is expected to concentrate on developing evidence that Carpio was insane at the time of the alleged crimes, rather than challenge the bulk of the state's account of what occurred.

He has said that he will call two expert witnesses and at least two civilian witnesses, depending on what the prosecutor does. The state has listed as potential state witnesses some of the same people that he would call, he said.

gsmith@projo.com / (401) 277-7334