Gesell Threatens Mistrial on Document

The judge in the Oliver L. North trial, piqued over attempts by the press to force disclosure of a classified document given to the jury, warned Monday that he may have to declare a mistrial if efforts by reporters are successful.

U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell told news media lawyers at a hearing on the issue that if he is compelled to release the document he may have to discharge the jury, which is still deliberating criminal charges against North.

Gesell did not explain how making a document public that jurors already have seen might lead to a mistrial.

Jury to Return Today

Meanwhile, the jury deliberated for a ninth day without reaching a verdict on the 12 felony charges against the former White House aide. Members of the jury, who are sequestered at a downtown hotel, will return to the courthouse this morning to resume their discussions.

The document in question, one of 363 exhibits in the Iran-Contra case against North, is a stipulation of facts agreed to by the government and by North’s lawyers to describe highly secret intercepts by the National Security Agency relating to the controversial shipment of U.S. Hawk missiles to Iran in 1985.

The NSA, with its worldwide electronic capabilities, apparently intercepted hundreds of conversations abroad dealing with the missile shipment through Israel as part of an effort to free U.S. hostages held in Lebanon.

The stipulation was designed to give sufficient information to jurors without compromising U.S. secrets through disclosure of the actual intercepts. Ten press organizations--including The Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press--are seeking to obtain the stipulation as it was presented to jurors.

Timothy Dyk, an attorney representing the press, said that the public and the news media have a right to see any trial document given to jurors. Gesell, who previously had rejected the request, was ordered by the U.S. Court of Appeals to conduct hearings on the issue that may continue even after jurors return a verdict.

Gesell told lawyers that the document is highly sensitive, saying that it is “the only document I treated this way after 14 months of working with over a million documents.” He asked for written briefs from Dyk and from government attorneys who oppose the release.

In a related development Monday, a July 10 trial date was set for former CIA official Joseph F. Fernandez, who was indicted recently in Alexandria, Va., on charges that he lied to a presidential commission investigating his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Fernandez was the CIA station chief in Costa Rica.