Potential Padilla jurors admit bias

It became clear in the second day of jury selection in the Jose Padilla terrorism trial just how raw the wounds of Sept. 11 remained in this city of immigrants and military veterans.

Many summoned for jury duty for a trial that is expected to last until August conceded during voir dire -- the process to determine their suitability as jurors -- that they could not be fair and impartial.

The prospective jurors’ responses came after a third of the 550 initially questioned by mail months ago were dismissed for bias in their written responses.

More than half of the 36 quizzed by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke this week failed to clear the second of several hurdles to serving on the jury.

Prospective jurors, including a Latino highway surveyor, an African American nurse, a Jewish advertising accountant and a divorced white electrician, have repeatedly invoked the images of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as the basis for their inability to judge Muslims fairly.

“It would pose some difficulty to me to be open-minded when the subject is terrorism,” a European-born businessman said.

“I love this country, and whatever happens to this country, to me that is a big concern,” said the land surveyor, speaking English with the cadence of Cubans. Asked whether he could hear the case with an open mind, he replied: “It would be hard for me.”

A department store sales clerk also of Latin American descent was dismissed after repeatedly insisting that the defendants must have done something wrong to have landed in federal court.

“Being very honest, in my heart, I don’t know that I can” set aside memories of the terrorist attacks, she told Cooke. She was excused after being asked whether she would want someone like her on her own jury. “No,” she answered vehemently.

The government has never alleged that Padilla, or co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun or Kifah Wael Jayyousi, were in any way involved in the Sept. 11 hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a fiery crash in Pennsylvania.

Padilla, 36, is charged with providing material support to terrorist groups and conspiracy to kill, kidnap or maim enemies of Islam in foreign battles from Afghanistan to Chechnya.

Several of the 17 jurors who have advanced to the stage at which the prosecution and defense can use their respective 30 and 36 peremptory challenges to exclude someone from the jury have also intimated preconceived ideas of the defendants’ guilt or doubts about their own objectivity.

A single mother who works at a medical office was asked whether she considered Muslims disproportionately prone to violence. She replied: “Before Sept. 11, I would have said no. But from what I’ve heard since then on the news, I’d say yes.”

Two women whom Cooke questioned Tuesday were among the most impassioned in expressing their views that the defendants weren’t entitled to the rights they have in U.S. federal court.

“From the terrorism here in this country and what I know about the background in this case, I would not be a fair and impartial juror,” an advertising accountant said. “It’s hard to admit that you’re prejudiced and biased, but in this situation I am.”

She was dismissed, as was a self-employed Miami Beach businesswoman who said that she regarded the defendants as “radical people” and believed “that they want to destroy us.”

Referring to Padilla, called an enemy combatant by President Bush after his May 2002 arrest and held 3 1/2 years without charges in a military brig, the businesswoman said that “he should still be there.”

Jeffrey F. Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, attributes the difficulty in finding impartial jurors in Miami to the convergence of military families, retired New Yorkers with ties to 9/11 victims, political conservatives and the large community of Cuban exiles who embrace U.S. values with gusto.

“The shockwaves from 9/11 are still with us,” Addicott said. “When you have a case of such high profile as this one, you usually change venue. But in this case, where would you change to? Every American knows about 9/11, and that shock is going to be with us at least another five to 10 years.”

Cooke has cautioned the four government prosecutors not to try to implicate Padilla in what happened on 9/11.

“Any idea, through inference or otherwise, that these defendants are connected to 9/11 is not available to the government in this case,” Cooke said before jury selection, when a defense lawyer complained of a recent government notification that expert witnesses would be called to talk about the group’s hand in the terrorist attacks.

Prosecutor Brian Frazier observed at the start of jury selection that because of the nature of the case and Padilla’s alleged associations, the jurors were “going to hear the word ‘terrorist’ in this case,” as well as the infamous date of Sept. 11.

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carol.williams@latimes.com