Jury Selection

The shouts of those who would re-elect Mayor Marion Barry and those who would boot him from office bounced off the front of the U.S. courthouse here yesterday, while inside, the difficult process of selecting an impartial jury to hear the drug and perjury case against the mayor began. Trying to keep the trial as free as possible from the high emotions the case has generated, a pool of 250 potential jurors was asked to answer a 25- page survey containing 69 questions. The questionnaire sought opinions on everything from the use of undercover sting operations, which the government used in January to catch Barry smoking crack, to whether a defendant's request for "divine forgiveness" would affect a finding of guilt or innocence.

After a day of tedious jury selection in City Councilman Leland Beloff's extortion trial, U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam was not happy that only three jurors had been tentatively chosen. Fullam chastised defense and government attorneys for failing to pick a jury after 30 people from the 100-member jury pool had been interviewed individually yesterday in the start of the trial of Beloff, 44, of S. 8th Street, and his top aide, Robert Rego, 42, of St. Michael's Drive, in South Philadelphia.

CHICAGO - Nearly 100 potential jurors filed into a federal courtroom Monday for the first day of a trial involving a Chicago businessman at the center of a case that could reveal links between an extremist group blamed for the deadly 2008 Mumbai attack and Pakistan's main intelligence agency. Tahawwur Rana, 50, who is accused of helping a former schoolmate serve as a scout for alleged Pakistani extremists involved in the three-day rampage in India's largest city, greeted the jury pool with a "Good morning.

Jury selection began yesterday in the first-degree murder trial of Joyce Lynch, who, with her husband, Richard, is accused of slaying a Hazlettville, Del., couple Christmas Eve 1987 and abducting the couple's 9-day-old infant. Joyce Lynch, 36, whom authorities said feigned a pregnancy for nine months before the crime, sat attentively, smiled and talked with her attorney as the first of 124 prospective jurors was interviewed by Kent County Superior Court Judge Henry duPont Ridgley.

Do you watch any of those real-cop action shows such as "America's Most Wanted" or "Cops"? Has the violence at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, affected your view of the right to bear arms? Do you think police treat African-Americans differently than whites? Do dreadlocks frighten you? These and scores of other question are part of a 26-page questionnaire that is now the basis for lawyers' interviews of prospective jurors in the federal civil suit against Philadelphia by MOVE bombing survivor Ramona Africa.

Only a mid-morning bomb scare interrupted the tedium of yesterday's jury selection in the case of a former president's daughter on trial for her protests against the government. The figurative fireworks promised by the defense - which has vowed to make the CIA as much a defendant as Amy Carter and her 14 co-defendants, including 1960s activist Abbie Hoffman - were put off for another day. Of the 43 prospective jurors who entered the state Superior Court about 11:15 a.m. yesterday, and who left only minutes later after police received the bomb threat, fewer than a dozen remained by the afternoon.

Jury selection in the federal corruption trial of Camden Mayor Milton Milan began on a contentious note yesterday, with prosecutors alleging that a potential juror signaled the mayor in the courtroom, and Milan retorting that federal officials are out to get him. Two federal agents - one with the FBI, the other with the IRS - said they saw the potential juror, a Cape May County man who works for a concrete company and listed his hobbies as...

When Christian Kirby's body was found two days before Thanksgiving, police said, the man accused of killing her had left two things behind: on the floor of her room, a protection from abuse order commanding him to stay away; and, on the bed beside her, the couple's unharmed 14-month-old son. According to court documents, Christian B. Michael confessed to killing his common-law wife in the same hour that a Montgomery County coroner pronounced the...

Amid heavy security and unusual selection procedures, lawyers today began picking a jury in the extortion trial of mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo. Chief U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam, in a preliminary matter, ruled that Philadelphia attorney Robert F. "Bobby" Simone would be allowed to continue to represent Scarfo at the trial, overruling prosecutors' objections. Scarfo, 58, of Atlantic City, head of the South Philadelphia organized crime family since 1981, waived his right to claim after the trial that Simone's representation was inadequate, and insisted to Fullam that it was his "desire" to have Simone represent him. Fullam had permitted Simone to stay in the case two weeks ago, but U.S. Attorney Edward S.G. Dennis Jr. asked the judge to reconsider that ruling last Friday.