
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 3, 1994                   TAG: 9402030215
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

NORIEGA ASKS FOR NEW TRIAL OVER BOOK

Attorneys for Manuel Antonio Noriega are asking for a new trial, claiming some of the jurors who convicted the ousted Panamanian dictator improperly pressured one juror to change her verdict to guilty in 1992.

Attorneys Frank Rubino and Jon May said evidence of juror misconduct is revealed in a recently published book on the Noriega trial, "The Case Against the General: Manuel Noriega and the Politics of American Justice" by Steve Albert of San Francisco. The book details Noriega's drug trafficking and racketeering trial, and includes a chapter on the 4 1/2 days the 12-member jury spent in deliberations.

The motion says the jurors acted improperly when:

A prayer session was conducted at a Miami hotel in an effort to convince hold-out juror Bernadine Cooper to drop her insistence that Noriega was innocent.

While at the hotel, juror Jean Hallisey attempted to appeal to Cooper's sense of patriotism by telling her: "The whole world is waiting for this verdict. President Bush is waiting for this verdict."

- Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

by CNB