Terrence Shannon Jr. rape trial begins with selection of jury to decide fate of Illinois basketball star

LAWRENCE, Kansas — Jurors were selected Monday in Douglas County to decide whether Chicago native and University of Illinois men’s basketball standout Terrence Shannon Jr. is guilty of grabbing an 18-year-old woman’s buttocks under her skirt and penetrating her vagina with his finger in September at a bar near the University of Kansas campus.

The 12 jurors and three alternates — eight men and seven women — were chosen after a lengthy jury selection process Monday in Judge Amy Hanley’s courtroom.

Shannon faces one count of rape or an alternative count of aggravated sexual battery, also a felony. He has denied the allegations, which stem from a trip he and two others took to Lawrence to watch an Illini-Jayhawks football game.

Shannon’s NBA hopes — some prognosticators believe he could be a first-round pick in this month’s draft — now hinge on a jury whittled down over the course of seven hours from a potential pool that exceeded 70 at the start of the day.

Dressed in a dark blue suit, brown shoes and a white shirt buttoned at the collar, sans tie, Shannon sat quietly during the first day of his scheduled four-day trial, occasionally leaning to his right to confer with two of his three attorneys: Tricia Bath, based in Leawood, Kansas, and Mark Sutter, whose office is in Oakbrook Terrace.

His attorneys have appeared eager to conclude the trial before the NBA draft begins June 26.

The trial continues Tuesday with opening statements.

Monday’s proceedings got off to a rocky start as one potential juror fainted from her chair. Other potential jurors and court deputies rushed to her aid, helping escort her to her feet and to the hallway, where she was seen by paramedics.

Prosecutor Ricardo Leal and Bath took turns posing questions of potential jurors, most centered on their understanding of the criminal justice system — did they understand, for example, that the state has the burden to prove Shannon’s guilt — and whether they felt they could make impartial decisions based on evidence and testimony alone.

Three were excused after an hour of questioning, apparently due to their stated negative views about police. Two potential jurors were later excused because of the nature of the alleged crime in the case; one said he had been a victim of a sexual assault, the other said she did not feel she could be fair and impartial.

Two more were excused after disclosing that someone close to them had been accused of a serious crime.

More than a dozen said they had heard about a Douglas County case involving an Illini basketball player, but none said they knew Shannon when, at Bath’s request, he stood to face the potential jury pool.

Shannon’s accuser testified during a May preliminary hearing that she had been in the “Martini Room” at the Jayhawk Cafe in the early hours of Sept. 9, when she saw a man she later identified as Shannon wave her over to him.

“I kind of made eye contact with him and he reached out his arm to grab me to pull him over toward him,” she testified. “So he kind of — I don’t remember where he grabbed me, but he grabbed me, and then as I got closer, he started grabbing on my hip area and my butt area.”

The entire encounter lasted maybe 30 seconds, she said. And at first, she said, she didn’t have a problem with him touching her over her clothes.

But his right hand slid under her skirt, she said, and grabbed her butt. Next, she said, she felt his hand move her underwear to the side and a finger inside her for what she estimated to be no more than 10 seconds.

Then, she said, he “just stopped.”

The two never spoke to each other. She said she froze, a drink in one hand and a phone in the other, both arms pressed near her chest.

“I was terrified,” she said during the May 10 preliminary hearing in Douglas County, according to a transcript.

She told authorities she identified Shannon after searching online for photos of rosters for football and basketball teams at KU and Illinois.

Shannon testified at the same May hearing and denied knowing his accuser or having any physical contact with her. His attorneys previously filed separate court motions questioning the strength of the state’s DNA evidence and suggesting authorities have failed to pursue another suspect.

That person is identified in attorney filings as a “third-party defendant.” The Chicago Tribune is not naming him as he’s not been charged in connection with the 18-year-old woman’s alleged rape.

Shannon’s attorneys previously said they have witnesses and video from the Martini Room that put the third-party defendant in the spot where the 18-year-old said Shannon was standing when she encountered him.

Police have not questioned this third-party defendant while investigating the reported rape, Shannon’s attorneys previously said.

Additionally, Shannon’s attorneys said the third-party defendant was accused by a different woman — also 18 — of touching her vagina outside her pants, without her consent, two weeks before the alleged Shannon incident, in the same location where Shannon’s accuser said she was assaulted. He was not charged in connection with that accusation.

Shannon’s legal team already scored a federal court victory earlier this year, persuading a judge to overturn his university suspension on the grounds that his extended absence from basketball (he’d missed six games at that point) violated his due process rights and potentially jeopardized millions of dollars from his NIL (name, image, likeness) contract and future earnings in the NBA.

A first-team All-Big Ten selection this season and last, the fifth-year guard guided the Illini to a Big Ten Tournament championship — being named Most Outstanding Player in the process — and a trip to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight, where they were trounced by eventual champion Connecticut 77-52.