Potential Jurors

Take the daily pay for a Baltimore Circuit Court judge, prosecutor, public defender, two cops, a government chemist, sheriff's deputy and court clerk. Multiply by two. What do you get? The cost incurred this week when a two-day drug trial went down the tubes because one of the jurors spoke little English. The prosecution and defense had done their things, two alternate jurors had been sent home, and the jury was a couple of hours into deliberations when it sent a note to Judge Emanuel Brown.

WASHINGTON -- The perjury and obstruction trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby turned into an examination of the credibility of the Bush administration yesterday, with lawyers for the former White House aide asking potential jurors how they feel about the war in Iraq and whether present and former administration officials who might be called to testify could be believed. Libby is charged with lying to investigators about conversations he had with journalists about a CIA operative who is married to a critic of the administration's war policies.

A state panel of lawyers and judges has shelved a proposal to ban public access to potential juror lists and to release only the names of people sworn in as jurors, saying it failed to address several issues. The proposal sought to ease the growing reluctance of people to serve on juries out of fear that their safety might be threatened or their private data compromised, or that they might be harassed after a trial. It has met stiff opposition from lawyers, who use the data to select juries, and from public information advocates, who say the proposal could remove the jury process from scrutiny.

WASHINGTON -- In a prelude to the court-martial of Navy's star quarterback last season, who is accused of raping a female classmate in January, prosecutors and defense attorneys questioned potential jurors about their impartiality, experience with alcohol use and sexual abuse. The military judge, defense attorneys and Navy lawyers eliminated nine of 14 "members" -potential jurors in military courts - because of their perceptions about Lamar Owens' guilt, past relationships with him or the alleged victim, and prior experience with sexual assault.

ROCKVILLE -- One by one, they walk down the aisle, some 300 prospective jurors, stealing glances around the nearly empty courtroom, before their eyes flash on the man for whom they are here. He is John Allen Muhammad, who faces six counts of murder in Montgomery County arising from the Washington-area sniper rampage in 2002. And nearly every one of the summoned county residents knows that he was convicted of a sniper shooting in Virginia in 2003. Prospective juror Andrew Truszkowski of Germantown said it felt "creepy" sitting across from Muhammad, who is on Virginia's death row. "He's a cold-blooded killer.

ROCKVILLE -- The difficulty of finding jurors in Montgomery County who had not decided that convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad was responsible for the county's six sniper killings in 2002 became immediately apparent yesterday as the presiding judge questioned the first batch of 300 potential jurors. During initial questioning - which was disrupted by a profanity-laced outburst from a victim's relative - nearly all of the first 25 potential jurors said they believed that Muhammad committed six murders in the county, and many were aware that he had been convicted of a sniper killing in Virginia.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Two Muslim immigrants were qualified as potential jurors. So was a career Navy veteran once assigned to the Pentagon who nearly lost a friend on Sept. 11. So was a young woman seeking to become an FBI agent, who believes Zacarias Moussaoui still might be conspiring to attack the United States. One by one yesterday, U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema asked a diverse group of prospective jurors whether they could put aside their anger over the attacks and fairly decide if the only man in this country who has admitted to being a Sept.

FORT HOOD, TEXAS -- Acknowledging Pfc. Lynndie R. England's participation in some of the most notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, a lawyer for the young Army reservist asked the jury yesterday to look beyond the photos in which she appeared with nude detainees posed in pyramids and in sexually humiliating positions. "The pictures are indisputable," Capt. Jonathan Crisp told the five Army officers serving as jurors. "The defense is not going to say that was not Lynndie England. The defense is not going to say that what those pictures show didn't happen.

ELKTON -- For the last five years of her life, Mary Elizabeth Kilrain lived locked in a bedroom in her Cecil County home. In 1999 after suffering a brain aneurysm, family members said, she became verbally abusive, so once a day, one of her three daughters would open the door to feed or bathe her, then lock it back up. On Feb. 25, police found her body behind the locked door, lying among decaying food and feces. She weighed 81 pounds. Police arrested her husband, John Joseph Dougherty -- who faces second-degree murder charges -- and his live-in girlfriend, Kathleen Marie Zeman.

It was the fourth question yesterday that put the brakes on jury selection in the trial of two Mexican immigrants charged with killing three children last year in Northwest Baltimore. "Does anybody believe they have heard or read anything about this case?" Baltimore Circuit Judge Thomas Ward asked a courtroom crowded with about 250 potential jurors. When nearly all hands shot up, Ward began the tedious process of interviewing each person separately about his or her knowledge of the crime for which Policarpio Espinoza, 23, and his nephew, Adan Canela, 18, are charged.