NATION IN BRIEF : ALABAMA : Governor’s Trial on Ethics Charge Begins

Jury selection began in Montgomery in the ethics trial of Guy Hunt, Alabama’s first Republican governor this century, who faces removal from office and up to 10 years in jail if convicted of using his office for personal profit. Hunt, 59, a lay preacher of the Primitive Baptist church in his second four-year term as governor, faces charges that he illegally took more than $200,000 from a tax-exempt fund set up to pay inauguration expenses after his surprise election in 1986. He contends he is the victim of political persecution.