Defense objects to everything

10:00 a.m. - Before the jury was brought into court Thursday defense attorney Dan Lewan stood asking the judge to strike the jury and declare a mistrial. Lewan said the court only got a jury because the defense was denied some of its requests to dismiss certain jurors for cause. He also said the court denied his request for additional preemptory strikes. Because of that he argued, the seated jury is not fair and impartial. The judge denied all of that.

Lewan also said the jurors were not selected in a legal Florida courtroom because the seal of the state of Florida is not hanging. Prosecutors stood and pointed out the Florida flag on a stand. The judge also denied the defenses motion to strike the jury on that account.

Mark Lunsford is sitting to my left in the front row just behind the prosecutors. He's wearing a black suit with small pin stripes. He's accompanied by his lawyer. Ruth and Archie Lunsford, Jessica's grandparents, are not in the courtroom yet. Mark says the sheriff's office picked them up and he doesn't know where they are at.

Opening Statements Begin

10:15 - Prosecutors begin opening statements. Prosecutor Ric Ridgway is first walks the jurors through a layout of the Lunsford home. He tells the jurors how the day before Jessica's disappearance was a normal day for the Lunsfords. Jessica had gone to school, then to the doctor with her grandparents and shopped that afternoon. Later that night, prosecutors say Jessica went to church.

Ridgway said “It was a normal day in the Lunsford household. It would be the last normal day.” Prosecutors are showing jurors where Couey was living and who he was living with.

10:23 - Ridway is now telling jurors about Mark Lunsford coming home the morning of her disappearance and heard Jessica's alarm was going off.

“The room was not stirred everything was in place except Jessie was not there.” Ridgway told jurors the only thing missing was a dolphin Mark had won for her at the fair. Ridgeway says the only thing wrong with the house is that there was a cut in the screen on the Lunsford home where a hand could reach through and unlock the door.

10:30 - Prosecutors laid out a timeline for jurors, starting from the day before Jessica Lunsford disappeared and going right through the time she was found dead. Prosecutors told juror Jessica's body was found in two plastic bags. Ridgway said she was buried alive. He told jurors the evidence will show Jessica's fingerprints were found inside Couey's house, so was her blood and a mixture of her blood and his semen. All jurors sat listening.

The defense is now telling the jurors that what the lawyers say during openings is not fact or evidence. Dan Lewan is telling jurors that prosecutors have the burden of proving the case. Lewan is telling jurors to look at the evidence but look also at who else was involved, how the case was conducted, and also the when and the why.

10:51 Sharon Armstrong on stand. She last saw Jessica the night before she was discovered missing. Armstrong had been teaching Jessica sign language and dropped her off at home after church.

Through tears, Armstrong told prosecutors what Jessica did before she went into the house, “She turned around and signed I love you.” Mark dabbed tears from the front row.