Fretful McDougal back in court
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
3/9/99 ERICA WERNER
For educational and discussion purposes only. Not for commercial use.
Back in federal court in Little Rock where she bid prison life an exultant farewell eight months ago, Susan McDougal spent Monday watching lawyers question prospective jurors for her federal criminal trial.
McDougal, who is charged with criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for twice refusing to answer questions before a federal grand jury, said she feels "really anxious" at the prospect of more time behind bars.
"This investigation scares me. It always has," said McDougal, who swept into the courthouse with an entourage that included two jurors from her recent embezzlement trial in California. "I don't think these people would stop at anything."
Independent counsel Kenneth Starr already persuaded a federal judge to put the 44-year-old Camden native in prison for 18 months after she resisted answering questions about President Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
McDougal also spent 3 1/2 months behind bars for four felony convictions from 1996.
Starr's chief deputy in Little Rock, W. Hickman Ewing Jr., said outside the federal courts building early Monday that he wants the trial to focus on the facts.
"We're hoping the jury will try this case on legal issues, not extraneous matters," Ewing said. "We'll be vigilant to have the case tried on what's relevant."
Ewing wants to prove the contents of the grand jury's indictment: that during two grand jury appearances, in September 1996 and April 1998, McDougal refused to answer questions, including some about a $5,081.82 check bearing her signature and the notation "Payoff Clinton."
McDougal's supporters want to make the trial about Starr, including allegations of connections with Clinton foes and of underhanded tactics in pressuring McDougal to come up with dirt on the president.
The questions Starr wanted McDougal to answer arose from the failed Madison County land deal in which McDougal and her late ex-husband James were partners with the Clintons during the '80s. McDougal's defiance and Starr's subsequent investigation into the Whitewater land deal and other matters made both household names.
Some prospective jurors interviewed Monday -- coincidentally the one-year anniversary of the day James McDougal died in prison -- already had an opinion of Starr or McDougal, and four were dismissed from U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr.'s courtroom for that reason.
Four others were dismissed for different reasons. The judge plans to seat the jury by late this week.
As the first order of business Monday, Howard conducted a general questioning and jury instruction, and read aloud the indictment of McDougal handed up in May by the second Whitewater grand jury in Little Rock.
McDougal's attorney and Starr's prosecutors questioned individual groups of six in Howard's private chambers, getting through four groups before recessing at 5 p.m. Acting for Starr, who will not be present for the trial, are two associate independent counsels, Julie Myers and Mark Barrett.
Questions focused on what the jury candidates already knew about Starr and McDougal, and whether they could consider the case fairly despite the star treatment the trial is getting in the media.
That treatment was on display in the judge's chambers: Geraldo Rivera sat in on part of the questioning, dressed casually in a sports jacket over a sweater, no tie.
Before Monday, the initial jury pool of about 400 had already been whittled down to 170 through the use of 11-page juror questionnaires that the defense and the prosecution worked on together. The questionnaires remain under seal.
Though all 24 juror prospects interviewed Monday had heard of Starr and McDougal, most said they didn't follow Whitewater news and had no opinion about the pair.
There were exceptions, like a man who condemned Clinton as "damn near socialist" and described Starr as "a misunderstood guy." The man nonetheless insisted he would be an unbiased juror, and McDougal's attorney, Mark Geragos, failed to get him dismissed.
Then there was the woman who, in her questionnaire, had described Starr as a "leak-o-matic," and admitted that if she were a prosecutor in the case, she wouldn't want herself in the jury box.
Barrett and Myers asked the judge to dismiss her, and he did.
During the jury selection in chambers, each side tries to eliminate jurors they think would help the other side by asking Howard to dismiss them "for cause."
Howard does so if he thinks the person would not be a fair, objective juror.
If the judge doesn't oblige, each side can later fall back on their strikes, which they can use to eliminate jurors for any reason except race or sex. In this case, the defense has 13 strikes and the prosecution nine.
When McDougal appeared before Howard in June, she had to hurriedly change out of her prison uniform into a suit for her hearing.
That was also when Howard unexpectedly freed her from prison because of back problems. She'd served the first 31/2 months of a two-year sentence the judge imposed in 1996 on fraud convictions.
Those months were on top of the 18 months for civil contempt imposed by another Little Rock judge, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright. If found guilty, McDougal could face fines up to $750,000 and a sentence determined by Howard.
This time, McDougal arrived at the courthouse in civilian clothes: a blue pants suit over a white sweater.
She often appears at hearings with numerous family members, and with her were her mother and father, a couple of brothers, and her longtime fiance, Pat Harris. New additions were Jill Ford and Nancy Nieman, both of Los Angeles, who sat on the jury panel that acquitted McDougal in November of fleecing prominent musical conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife, Nancy, of $150,000.
Nieman said they were there to support McDougal because the Santa Monica trial "should not have happened." McDougal has accused Starr of masterminding that trial, an allegation he's denied. |
