Judge rules have photos have “probative value”

Judge Scott Sprouse has decided that photographs of a woman burned at a home near Seneca have probative value and he will allow the prosecution to offer them as evidence during a trial that starts this morning at the Oconee Courthouse.  Sprouse denied a motion by the defense attorney who considers the photographs “highly prejudicial” and sought to have them excluded during this week’s trial.  Opening arguments and first testimony in the case of South Carolina against Jacob Daniel Drotning are scheduled at 9:30.  Drotning was arrested in 2014 and charged with attempted murder, arson second degree, criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature and malicious injury to property.  An arrest warrant alleged Drotning poured gasoline onto Catherine Cook and set her on fire.  From a large pool of jurors, one woman and eleven men were seated as the jury.  Before his jury strikes were exhausted, defense lawyer Lee Cole rejected every woman who presented herself from the pool for jury service.  Sprouse yesterday morning denied Cole’s motion for a mistrial, after the defense lawyer claimed that his client saw what appeared to be Cook speaking to someone wearing a badge inside the courtroom.  But assistant solicitor Lindsey Simmons quoted the victim’s advocate from her office as denying that the victim spoke to any potential juror.