Deaver Trial Postponed Until Oct. 19 : Defense to Review Appeals Ruling on Public Jury Selection

A federal judge today postponed former White House aide Michael K. Deaver’s perjury trial until Oct. 19 to allow defense lawyers time to seek Supreme Court review of an appellate court order requiring jury selection in the case to be open to the public.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson set the new trial date after dismissing a pool of 94 prospective jurors, many of whom had been questioned behind closed doors.

Jackson dismissed the jury pool a day after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here, acting on a challenge by several media organizations, ordered him to conduct jury selection in open court.

‘No Appreciation’

Defense attorney Herbert J. Miller Jr. had said he would ask the high court to review the appeals panel’s ruling, saying it showed “no appreciation at all” for the difficulties in jury selection.

Jackson’s action was the second major delay in the long-awaited trial. The case previously was postponed while Deaver unsuccessfully pressed a constitutional challenge to the special prosecutor.

The prosecutor, Whitney North Seymour Jr., objected to any further delays in the trial.

“The government is ready to proceed to trial,” Seymour said. “We’ve had a number of weeks of struggle. The Supreme Court has already been supplicated by other actions by the defendant,” he said, referring to Deaver’s unsuccessful challenge of Seymour’s authority.

Assured of Confidentiality

In a written order issued after the hearing, Jackson noted that he had assured prospective jurors that their answers to written and oral questions would be kept confidential.

The judge said he felt compelled to dismiss the panel because “I am now certain that many, if not all, of them have lost faith in my ability to protect their confidences.”

He wrote: “I am also satisfied that the several interruptions of these proceedings occasioned by the news media’s efforts to cause revisions of the voir dire procedures to their liking, in which they have largely succeeded, have left an impression in the minds of the panel that it is the news media, not the court, who dictate the pace of the trial and the manner of proceeding.”

Charged With Lying

Deaver, a former White House deputy chief of staff and close personal friend of the President and Nancy Reagan, is charged with five counts of lying to a grand jury and House subcommittee investigating a lobbying business he set up after leaving the White House in 1985. He is the first person to be brought to trial under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act.

Jackson had given jurors the choice of being questioned behind closed doors or in public because many of the queries involved whether they had had experiences with alcohol or drug abuse.

The defense has signaled that it will argue that problems with alcohol clouded Deaver’s memory, according to sources familiar with the case.