THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 12, 1994 TAG: 9410120453
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 133 lines
Mary Jane Vanderburg shudders when snippets of the O.J. Simpson hearings appear on television. She quickly turns off the set.
James ``Parker'' Ellison refuses to watch the proceedings.
Ellison, a 35-year-old engineer from Greenville, N.C., said he can't even watch ``The People's Court.'' It unearths too many memories.
While millions of other Americans watch with fascination as the celebrity murder case unfolds, Vanderburg and Ellison find it disturbing.
They were two of 12 jurors in a lengthy criminal trial that, like the Simpson case,was conducted in the glare of the national spotlight: the Little Rascals day-care trial of Robert F. Kelly Jr., which began three years ago.
This week, 304 prospective jurors in the Simpson case are undergoing the first round of intense questioning to determine whether they will serve on the panel. Twelve jurors and eight alternates will be selected to decide Simpson's fate.
If anybody could tell them what is in store, it would be Ellison, Vanderburg or the other Little Rascals jurors.
The trial began with jury selection in July 1991 and lasted nine months. The panel heard disturbing, often conflicting testimony in the longest-running, most expensive and most emotionally wrenching trial held in North Carolina.
The jury convicted Kelly in April 1992 of 99 counts of molesting a dozen children who once attended his Little Rascals day-care center in Edenton, N.C. He received 12 life sentences. The case is on appeal.
The trial cost at least $1 million and made national headlines as jurors listened to months of testimony from parents, children and experts.
``Being a juror, it was my job,'' Ellison said, ``but I had to cut it on and cut it off. I felt that's what I had to do to keep my own sanity.''
Ellison's reaction is not uncommon for jurors forced to serve in high-profile, controversial trials like the Simpson case.
The stress from hearing gruesome details of violent crimes, constant inquiries from friends and reporters, plus long hours of listening to seemingly endless legal arguments, can trigger headaches, upset stomach, sleeplessness and depression, says Thomas L. Hafemeister, senior staff attorney with the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg. The center provides research and other assistance to state courts across the country.
``The media pressure is incredibly intense . . . and the jurors just feel like they're kind of walking the gantlet,'' he said. ``Some jurors, they want to talk about it and they need to talk about it. Some jurors meet every year to sort out their feelings about a trial.''
Jurors may exhibit symptoms during and after a trial similar to the trauma associated with police work, firefighting or emergency rescue, he said.
Jurors in the Little Rascals trial sat through hours of testimony from children who testified about sexual abuse.
``In a situation like that, you just sit there and try to look expressionless,'' Vanderburg said. ``You try not to show all the feelings that are going on inside of you.''
For Vanderburg, the stress of the trial meant dreaming about the case over and over again, even after it ended.
``It just takes a little while to get readjusted,'' said Vanderburg, 54, a grandmother who keeps the books for her husband's business. ``I had a family that was real supportive, and after a short period of time, I got back to my same old routine.''
In some states, courts offer support for jurors after a trial - ``jury debriefing.''
In California, Kentucky, New York, Maryland and Washington, courts have encouraged jurors to meet as a group to discuss their reactions to the trial by providing a social worker and psychologist or other mental health professional.
Katherine Harris, the Little Rascals jury foreman, would have liked such help.
``I was hoping we all could get some type of group therapy to just get together and discuss it,'' said Harris, 38, a supervisor at a Pitt County hospital.
Harris said she tried to deal with the stress of the trial by going to work a few hours before and after the trial most days.
Despite the stresses of the trial, some jurors formed a support group. Harris and other jurors exchanged their favorite recipes, ordered items from Christmas catalogs, discussed sports and chatted about their families and lives.
``I thoroughly enjoyed every person that was on that jury,'' Harris said. ``We really did, at that time, have a good bond with one another, and it's amazing what all you find to talk about.''
But she still could not forget certain aspects of the case.
``I even tried to discuss it after it was all over, and my husband said, `I don't want to hear that mess,' '' she said. ``When I started telling him things that went on, he just did not want to talk about it. It made him sick.''
In most states, including North Carolina and Virginia, jurors are not allowed to discuss what they have seen or heard until a trial ends. But in lengthy, controversial cases, that can be difficult.
``I think the . . . hardest, most stressful thing for a juror in a trial that length is the order that they cannot discuss the case with anyone - between themselves or anyone else,'' said Nancy Lamb, who helped prosecute the Little Rascals case.
``It was very graphic and I'm sure very disturbing to them,'' said Lamb, an associate attorney general in the North Carolina Department of Justice. ``That was obvious on their faces many of the days.''
While legal experts said jurors in the Simpson case are likely to be sequestered - shielded from outside contact during the trial - jurors in the Little Rascals trial were not. They were allowed to go to work and return home to their families in the evenings. They also were given Fridays off.
Judge D. Marsh McLelland, who presided over the North Carolina case, decided not to sequester the jury.
``(Sequestration) tends to tell the jurors, we don't really trust you to resist outside influences,'' he said. ``For nine months, they would have been locked away from their families and contacts.''
He added that the procedure can protect jurors from harassment. But McLelland acknowledged that, after a trial, jurors are vulnerable to outside pressures from the media, lawyers and others in the community who may cause them to second-guess their decision.
More than a year after the Kelly verdict, three jurors recanted their stories and swore in affidavits that their decisions had been influenced by outside evidence. McLelland rejected a motion for a new trial based on jury misconduct, but that ruling is under appeal.
One of the three who recanted was Marvin Shackelford.
``I still have doubts today,'' said Shackelford, 57, who assembles heaters in Ayden, N.C.
Shackelford said last week that he and one other juror ``sat there and argued and argued and argued. We said if we don't agree, we'll be here six more months, and I got tired. It was almost like going to work, as far as the aggravation,'' he said. ``But if I'd go back through it again, I'd probably argue six more months and still wouldn't change my mind. . . . I just really wanted to get out of there.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Juror Mary Jane Vanderburg had dreams about the case after its end.
KEYWORDS: DAY CARE CENTERS CHILD ABUSE SEX CRIME
CHILD MOLESTER TRIAL JUROR SELECTION by CNB