ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997 TAG: 9704230064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DENVER
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sources say the panel, including alternates, appears to comprise 16 white members and two who are Hispanic or American Indian.
The jury in the Oklahoma City bombing trial was selected Tuesday, with the judge taking extraordinary measures to keep the panelists' identities secret.
``I now address you as members of the jury,'' U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch told them as they took their assigned seats in the jury box.
Although their names, backgrounds, attitudes and races were not disclosed, sources said the jury consisted of seven men and five women, with an alternate panel of three men and three women.
The jury is blocked from the view of reporters in the courtroom by a wall, but can be partially seen by members of the public. Those in the courtroom said the panel appeared to have 16 white members and two whose race could not be determined, but who appeared to be either Hispanic or American Indian.
Matsch told jurors to return Thursday to take their oath and hear opening statements in the case against Timothy McVeigh.
The 28-year-old Gulf War veteran is charged in the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil: the April 19, 1995, bombing of the downtown Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.
Intent on preserving jurors' privacy, Matsch concocted an unusual system of exercising peremptory challenges, in which jurors were identified by a letter and a number.
Lawyers called out the codes - D-2, A-4, E-6 and the like - of the jurors to be dismissed. In peremptory challenges, no reason must be stated to excuse a juror.
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB