Starr’s Prosecutors Can’t Interview McDougal Jurors

In another setback for independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that prosecutors cannot interview jurors who refused to convict Susan McDougal, President Clinton’s Whitewater partner, in her recent criminal trial.

U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. concluded that Starr’s office had not shown “good cause” for the court to make an exception to a policy of “not invading the province of the jury.”

Prosecutors had said interviewing jurors would be important to their decision about whether to seek a retrial of McDougal on two counts that deadlocked the jury.

“We are evaluating our next step,” Starr spokeswoman Elizabeth Ray said.

Howard wrote that “permitting the unbridled interviewing of jurors could easily lead to their harassment, to the exploitation of their thought processes . . . and to diminished confidence in jury verdicts as well as unbalanced trial results.”

Various members of the jury have talked to the news media since the verdict this month. In interviews with Associated Press, jury foreman Donald Thomas said he was put off by the “arrogance” of Starr’s prosecutors and thought that the testimony of Starr’s deputy, W. Hickman Ewing Jr., was evasive.

Howard said: “Most courts do not allow attorneys to contact jurors after the conclusion of a trial. Federal courts generally disfavor post-verdict interviewing.”

The jury this month acquitted McDougal on an obstruction of justice charge but deadlocked on two counts of criminal contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Whitewater.

Starr prosecutor Julie Myers had argued that “post-trial contacts with the trial jurors may help save the United States, the court and the defendant from undergoing another judicial proceeding.”

McDougal’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, at first said he would welcome such interviews by the prosecution team. He later changed his mind and objected to the request. Geragos said Arkansans had been bothered enough by Starr’s investigation.

Geragos said federal rules do not allow an inquiry into the “mental processes” of jurors.

“They are never going to retry this case,” Geragos said Wednesday after the judge’s decision. “It’s just more nonsense and a way for them to spend more tax dollars. It’s time they came to their senses, packed up and moved.”

Thomas, the jury foreman, had said that testimony from other witnesses--especially Julie Hiatt Steele, who, like McDougal, was charged with obstructing Starr’s investigation--convinced some jurors that McDougal’s fears about testifying to a grand jury were justified.

McDougal said she thought she would be charged with perjury unless she falsely implicated the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton in wrongdoing.

Angela Smith, one of five jurors who wanted to convict McDougal of criminal contempt, has said she saw no evidence Starr’s team acted improperly.

But another juror, Becky Boeckmann, said she wanted to acquit McDougal on all counts and doubted she knows anything of value to prosecutors.

One of the jurors who wanted to acquit McDougal on all three counts, Michael Nance, insisted Starr’s office “was not on trial here, only Mrs. McDougal.”