The jury was selected on Wednesday for the trial of a Keokuk man accused of killing his father during a fight over dinner in January.
Craig Rockenbach, 43, is charged with second-degree murder (class B felony).
At around 7:23 p.m. on Jan. 22, police were called to a home on the 400 block of Burke St. for a report of a disturbance in progress.
When officers arrived, they found 84-year-old Gary Rockenbach laying on the kitchen floor with bloody cuts on his hand, leg, and face, according to a criminal complaint.
Investigators learned that Craig had become upset with his parents over dinner and began to attack Gary, throwing a chair and him before punching him in the face and throwing him to the ground, the complaint states.
According to a press release from the Keokuk Police Department, the assault took place over a disagreement over food.
Rockenbach was arrested and initially charged with assault causing bodily injury, a serious misdemeanor charge.
But after Gary Rockenbach died at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City on Feb. 1, Rockenbach was charged with second-degree murder.
On Wednesday, jurors were selected during the day-long selection process at the South Lee County Courthouse in Keokuk.
Approximately 80 potential jurors filled the packed courtroom, but around 35 were selected as potential jurors.
Without going into details of the case, Lee County Attorney Ross Braden took up most of the jury selection process, discussing the standards of evidence and reasonable doubt with the potential jurors, and how the State intends go about proving guilt.
Defense attorney Curtis Dial spoke about the differences between conviction standards in criminal cases versus civil trials, the cross-examination and deposition processes. He explained that Rockenbach’s 11-year-old daughter is expected to testify as a witness in the case, discussed how media coverage of criminal cases sometimes present incomplete pictures of events as they occur, and told the jurors they may find that the defendant guilty of a lesser charge.
With the Lee County and Keokuk communities not being particularly large, the jury selection process highlighted this fact very clearly.
Several of the potential jurors were either familiar or former clients of Dial’s, while a few either knew Rockenbach from their school days or were familiar with the Rockenbach family. Others stated they knew members of the Lee County Attorney’s Office and local police. But most stated they believed they could be unbiased in the case.
Several also said they had heard about the case either through social media, news reports, or word-of-mouth, but most did not have any opinions on the case.
In total, eight potential jurors were excused, likely because they stated they already had opinions on Rockenbach’s guilt, due to personal connections to the Rockenbach family or Dial, or because they openly admitted they did not believe they could be impartial.
But there were two exceptions.
One excused juror was a Fort Madison attorney for a law firm for which Braden’s mother works. Another excused juror had a felony conviction 30 years ago.
After both attorneys were done addressing the potential jurors, each took turns striking seven potential jurors from the final selection, leaving 12 jurors and two alternate jurors by the time the day's proceedings wrapped up.
Coincidentally, one juror who was also excused during the final selection is Rockenbach’s daughter’s teacher.
One selected juror is the wife of a former Lee County State’s Attorney/current judge, and a personal friend of Dial and his family (but stated she believed she could be impartial).
The trial is set to resume at 9 a.m. Thursday morning at the South Lee County Courthouse in Keokuk.
