7 Bush critics may serve on (Plame/Wilson CIA) leak case jury

[sabra]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-briefs18.1jan18,1,5650147.story?coll=la-news-a_section

7 Bush critics may serve on leak case jury

Seven critics of the Bush administration and the Iraq war were approved as potential jurors in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby after they said they could set those feelings aside.

But two members of the jury pool were dismissed when they said their strong opposition to the administration might color their deliberations in the CIA leak trial. One said she couldn't believe any statement by an administration official; the other said President Bush's policies would be a strike against witnesses from the administration.

[AzDar]

1. *SNICKER* (sorry.... I think I'm immaturing with age..)

..'Couldn't believe ANY statement made by an Administration official'....:rofl:

[dubyaD40web]

2. It's going to be hard to find a "non-Bush" critic

What's he polling at again? Low to mid 30's?

[wakeme2008]

3. What was funnier was the defence was looking for people that TRUSTED

Crashcart.... :rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

4. My bet is that many folks don't want to serve on the jury--

maybe just not wanting to commit the time, maybe for more serious reasons, like fear of intimidation or retaliation from the likes of the Neocons or the BFEE Brownshirts. Easiest way to avoid duty is to say you're predisposed to disbelieve anything the defense says. Bingo-you're off the jury.

This guy pissed off Dick Cheney:

[NashVegas]

5. This Reminds Me Of Another Trial

Look up Richard Brenneke & Heinrich Rupp sometime.

[demnan]

6. It's hard to find someone who isn't a critic

of the Bush administration these days.

[Demeter]

7. Washington Post Take on the Jury Selection...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011701270_2.html


In Libby Trial, Big Names Make Jury Picks a Tall Order
Shallow Pool Teems With Ties to Players

By Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 18, 2007; A01



To see how small a town Washington really is, drop in on jury selection at the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, where so far nearly every juror candidate seems to have a connection to the players or events surrounding the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

There is the software database manager whose wife works as a prosecutor for the Justice Department, and who counts the local U.S. attorney and a top official in Justice's criminal division as neighbors and friends. A housecleaner who works at the Watergate and knows Condoleezza Rice, not by her title of secretary of state, but as the "lady who lives up on the fifth floor." And a former Washington Post reporter whose editor was now-Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward; he went to barbecues at the house of NBC's Tim Russert, a neighbor, and just published a book on the CIA and spying...It has always been difficult to select juries in Washington, where the pool is small compared with the number of trials, and half the people summoned to be jurors don't even show up. But the star power of the players in this case has complicated matters.

By the end of yesterday's session, Walton and lawyers for both sides had quizzed 33 potential jurors and excused nine. The 24 remaining in the pool, and others who will be questioned starting this morning, still could be struck by lawyers on either side. Walton said he wanted to complete the selection of 12 jurors and four alternates by the end of today. Jurors cannot be identified by name, under an order from the judge.

One journalist, for instance, said she had met a reporter and an editor on the witness list, Matthew Cooper and Jay Carney of Time magazine, when they appeared repeatedly on a foreign-affairs television show she produces at Voice of America.

Another candidate, the former Post journalist, seemed to have a link to nearly every key player in the case. He had worked in the newspaper's Metro section, he said, where his editor was Woodward, a key defense witness. Until recently, he lived across an alley from Russert, a star witness for the prosecution. And he had gone to parties with The Post's Walter Pincus, another defense witness.

He said he would understand if the lawyers believed he couldn't be impartial, but he promised he would use his reporter training to sort through the facts fairly.

"If I were in your seats, I'd be skeptical," he said.

Then he noted that one of his best friends plays in an over-40 football league with Libby. And he has heard that Libby "has a great arm."

Did he mention that he went to grade school with Maureen Dowd, he asked the judge? That would be the New York Times columnist who publicly savaged colleague Judith Miller after some of Miller's reporting on the Iraq war came to light around the time of the Plame investigation. Miller is a witness for the prosecution.

One juror, a middle-aged woman, told the judge that she had worked in the "executive residence" -- that is, the White House. She was an administrative assistant in the grounds office from the Reagan administration until the inauguration of President Bush.

Another woman said she helped develop health policy in the office of the secretary of health and human services. She said she could be impartial about the administration but acknowledged she was "not particularly impressed" by how Cheney has handled certain events.

Not every potential juror knew the people in the case. A retired math teacher who moved here from North Carolina said he had no basis for judging the credibility of White House officials, including Cheney -- although he admitted that he was "not sure I would like to go bird hunting with him, either."

Walton chuckled, and Libby burst into laughter, burying his face in his hands.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Poor Libby! Would you want Dick Cheney as your character witness?

Last time I looked, his approval was at 17%. Just him and his bird dogs.

The El Stinko Post focuses on DC residents' connections to DC players as a clever way of avoiding the real issue in this jury selection, and that is that it is nearly impossible to find jury members who don't think the Bush Junta is a bunch lying, deceitful S.O.B.'s who have disgraced our government. 70% of the American people want their dirty oil war in Iraq ended, and 84% want nothing to do with the widened Mideast war that they are trying to instigate. An "impartial" jury in this case would have to be brain dead. MOST Americans would be excluded.