The Antonie Dixon re-trial became even more complicated on Wednesday, after it needed to be re-started, due to the judge discharging the original jury.
A jury of 12 was picked on Monday but that afternoon one juror was discharged, for undisclosed reasons, leaving only 11. On Wednesday the judge then dismissed the entire jury forcing a new one to be empanelled.
The judge told the court and the media that there was too much risk involved in only having 11 jurors, as the chance of loosing another was quite high due to the length of the trial.
A trial would only be able to go on with 10 jurors in exceptional circumstances, and with that in mind the decision was made to pick a new, 12 member jury.
Dixon is accused of hacking two women with a samurai sword and
shooting dead a man at a petrol station.
He was found guilty of the crimes in 2005 but the Court of Appeal
quashed the convictions last year and granted him a retrial.
Dixon is facing a total of eight charges including murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and grievous bodily harm. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Crown Prosecutor Simon Moore has described what he says was an extraordinary trail of death and destruction.
On Monday, the Crown told the court that on January 22, 2003, Dixon attacked Simone Butler and Renee Hills with a samurai sword in a warehouse, before driving to Auckland where it is alleged he shot James te Aute with a machine gun.
They say Dixon believed the women were part of a conspiracy against him.
From there, it is alleged he drove to East Tamaki and took a man hostage.
The Crown said Dixon was itching to have a shoot out with police and his grand plan was to take out as many police as he could.
Dixon's lawyers outlined their defence on Monday, saying there
were issues of insanity. However the prosecutor said Dixon knew
what he was doing at the time of the incident.
