Juror Dismissed in CIA Leak Trial

Presiding Judge Says Jury Will Continue Deliberations in the Case

26 Feb 2007 // The jury considering whether I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is guilty of perjury lost one of its members this morning but will continue working to reach a decision, a judge decided.

The presiding judge dismissed one female juror in her 70s, an art curator, after she disclosed to her peers that she had come into contact over the weekend with information about the case of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff. The foreperson reported it this morning to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who interviewed the jurors and decided the female juror had not intentionally sought to ignore his orders that all 12 jurors avoid contact with media coverage and any other informationabout the Libby case.

Walton agreed with the defense's request that the jury will continue deliberating with 11 members, rejecting Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's request that the judge call back one of two alternates and start deliberations over. The jury had been deliberating since Wednesday afternoon.

"I just don't think it would be appropriate to throw away those 2 ½ days of deliberations," he said. "I don't have anything to suggest that this jury is anything but conscientious and can continue."

According to court house sources, the woman sought information over the weekend, and realized this morning that it was inappropriate to do so.

Fitzgerald appeared disturbed by the development, while several defense attorneys and Libby were wearing broad smiles at the news of the woman's removal.

The two parties were summoned to the court by the judge just after 9:30 am.

Libby, 56, is charged with five counts of making false statements, perjuring himself and obstructing a probe into who may have criminally leaked information about CIA officer Valerie Plame to the press. He is not charged with the leak, but Fitzgerald has accused him of lying to conceal his role in discussing her identity with reporters.

Her name and classified CIA role was disclosed in a syndicated column on July 14, days her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify war with Iraq.

On Feb. 8, the trial was halted briefly when a juror revealed that she had inadvertently seen a photo and headline about witness Tim Russert, NBC News' Washington bureau chief, in The Washington Post's Style section. Federal marshals cut all references to the trial from the jurors' morning newspapers but had missed that story.

During questioning of potential jurors before the trial began, the woman who was dismissed had said she grew up in New York, attended Syracuse University and Mills College, then went on to get a PhD in art history from London University.

She said that she worked for a decade at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as a curator of prints and drawings and that she now does independent research and writing.

Like many of the District residents who ultimately were selected for the jury, she indicated that she did not have strong political attitudes and did not follow the news closely. She said that she read a major newspaper perhaps twice a week and added, "I never watch TV."

In questioning to select a jury, she said she was sympathetic to what would become one of the defense's central theories of the case: that people can have innocent distortions of their memory. Asked whether two people can disagree about something, both believing that they are correct, she replied: "I witness it in my married friends all the time. There are disputes about what happened."

The juror, who had white-blonde hair and wore large, stylish black-frame glasses and took extensive notes, distinguished herself from her peers at one point during the trial. On Valentine's Day, the jury filed into the courtroom's jury box at mid-afternoon, wearing identical red T-shirts with a white heart. She was the only juror who had not donned a T-shirt.

If the jury were to lose another member, the judge said, he would call upon one of the two remaining alternates and instruct the jurors to begin deliberations again.