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Judge rejects challenge before trial in infant’s death

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October 29th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) — A judge has rejected a challenge to a jury pool for a man charged in the death of his infant son. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports Judge Richard Stochl ruled Monday there weren’t systematic problems with how the pool was assembled and that it was a representative cross-section of Henry County.

Lawyers had objected to the potential makeup of the jury for Zachary Koehn, who is charged with murder and child endangerment. Police say officers found the maggot-infested body of 4-month-old Sterling Koehn in an infant swing on Aug. 30 last year at the couple’s Alta Vista apartment. The baby’s mother, Cheyanne Harris, is having a separate trial.

Koehn’s trial was moved to Mount Pleasant in Henry County because of pretrial publicity in Chickasaw County. Defense attorney Steven Drahozal asked the court last week to reconsider the jury pool because of an under-representation of Hispanic people. Drahozal says Koehn has a Hispanic background and is entitled to a jury drawn from a cross-section of the community.