7 Men, 5 Women Picked as McVeigh Bomb Trial Jury

In a federal courtroom shrouded in secrecy, a jury of seven men and five women was chosen Tuesday to sit in judgment over Timothy J. McVeigh, who is accused of capital murder in the worst case of terrorism in U.S. history.

The jury is scheduled to return Thursday morning to the U.S. courthouse to hear opening statements in a trial expected to stretch into the summer.

McVeigh, who turns 29 today, is the first of two men to stand trial in the deaths of 168 people killed in the April 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He sat solemnly much of the day as the final decisions by his attorneys and prosecutors were made after more than three weeks of jury selection.

That three-week process of questioning potential jurors--often considered a critical phase of a trial--was conducted by U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch under extraordinary secrecy.

Matsch had a wall built next to the jury box to protect the identities of jurors by obstructing the view of reporters--even though members of the panel will be visible to attorneys, the defendant and spectators who are not part of the news media.

The potential jurors were shielded from the media in the same fashion during the three weeks of questioning. Matsch had assigned numbers to the 99 men and women during that phase. But on Tuesday, in another step to shield them, he scrambled the numbers so that as lawyers settled on the final 18, reporters could not describe them even by the comments they had made during the earlier phase of questioning.

In addition, Matsch did not say publicly which of the 18 were chosen as trial jurors and which were alternates who would sit with the panel and would be available to step in if a regular juror is excused during the trial.

Sources said, however, the trial jury is composed of seven men and five women and that another three men and three women were chosen as alternates. Sixteen are white and the remaining two appear to be Latino or Native American.

Today, attorneys for media organizations covering the trial, including The Times, plan to go to court to try to get the wall next to the jury box removed and to have the juror numbers unscrambled so the media will have some sense of the beliefs of the people who will sit in judgment of McVeigh.

During the final questioning Tuesday, several prospective jurors stressed that, because of job restraints and other concerns, they should not be required to sit on the jury.

One man worried about his business, saying that he could lose all of his clients if he were forced to serve on such a long trial. “I really don’t know if I will have a business left,” he said. “And I don’t know exactly how to evaluate that. So I’m very concerned.”

A woman said she sympathizes with the victims of the bombing, including the 500 people who were injured, some seriously. “That is my concern--if it will cloud my ability to be fair and non-partial,” she said. “And I don’t think I can be.”