Prospective jurors in a schizophrenic’s meat-cleaver slaying of an Upper East Side psychiatrist are being probed about their own mental-health experiences as jury selection gears up in the sensational Manhattan murder trial.
Nearly half of the 25 prospects grilled yesterday in the disturbing case of off-his-meds slasher David Tarloff conceded in open court that they, or someone close to them, have had some need for counseling. A fifth of the prospects said they knew someone who suffered a serious mental illness.
“But not everyone who has a mental-health issue gets a blank check to commit a crime — does that make sense to you?” prosecutor Evan Krutoy asked prospective jurors.
It’s an insanity-defense case in which both the killer and the victim — Dr. Kathryn Faughey, hacked to death in her East 79th Street office during a botched robbery five years ago — lived lives immersed in mental- health concerns, so prosecutors and defense lawyers alike are checking prospective jurors for biases.
Tarloff himself is the unofficial Exhibit A of jury selection. The former telemarketer from Queens rocks slightly but continually in his chair at the defense table, his blue eyes wide in a look of apparent alarm.