Death row inmate’s trial for murder to be moved

BOISE – A judge has decided to move the first-degree murder trial of death row inmate Erick Hall after lawyers on both sides agreed that news coverage made it too difficult to pick a jury in Ada County.

Jury selection began last week, but on Tuesday, defense lawyers requested a change of venue after a headline in Monday’s Idaho Statesman mentioned Hall’s conviction in a 2000 murder.

Hall was convicted and sentenced to death for raping and strangling Lynn Henneman, a visiting flight attendant whose body was discovered along Boise’s greenbelt in the summer of 2000.

In the current case, he is charged with first-degree murder in the rape and strangulation death of Cheryl Ann Hanlon, whose body was found in March 2003 in the foothills north of Boise.

If he is convicted in Hanlon’s death, prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty again.