Judge Warns of Possible Mistrial in North Case

WASHINGTON — While the Oliver L. North jury deliberated for the ninth day today, the judge raised the specter of a mistrial if the news media succeed in forcing disclosure of a sealed document in the case.

“If you prevail in this matter,” U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell told a lawyer for 10 news organizations, “one possibility is I must discharge the jury.”

The document in question, a stipulation of facts agreed to by the government and North, summarizes highly secret “intercepts” of intelligence gathered as the National Security Agency tracked a CIA-assisted November, 1985, shipment of Hawk missiles from Israel to Iran.

North is charged with claiming in a false chronology that no one in the U.S. government knew until January, 1986, about the missiles. His defense is that then-CIA Director William J. Casey and then-National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter knew about the missiles from the intercepted messages but perpetuated the false story.

The stipulation, an exhibit in the trial, was included in the material the jury took into its deliberations on April 21. But Gesell refused to release it to the public, and the news organizations filed a protest with the court.

‘Very, Very Broad’ Issues

At a hearing today, Gesell said the issues were “very, very broad.” He brushed aside an attempt at explanation by Timothy B. Dyk, who represents the news media. Dyk said that “only one document” was involved.

“It’s the only document I treated this way after 14 months of dealing with over a million documents,” Gesell said.

The judge did not elaborate on how forced disclosure could lead to the jury’s discharge.

One scenario might be a protest by the Justice Department that national security secrets were about to be disclosed. That would force Gesell to withdraw the document from the jury’s consideration, which in turn could lead North’s lawyers to say he could not get a fair trial.

Then-President Ronald Reagan, when interviewed by the Tower investigative commission in January, 1987, said he did not remember how the shipment of Hawk missiles came about. A month later, he told the commission that both he and his chief of staff, Donald T. Regan, agreed they could not remember any meeting about a shipment of Hawk missiles.