Judge Refuses Bid to Delay Trial Because of Terrorist Attacks

Attorneys on Thursday asked for a postponement of the trial of an Egyptian citizen accused of killing an Orange County boy, saying their client cannot get a fair trial amid the tensions created by this week’s terrorist attacks.

The request by lawyers for John Samuel Ghobrial comes amid reports of hate crimes against Arab Americans across the nation after the devastating attacks Tuesday in New York and Washington that took potentially thousands of lives.

“With this kind of pain and mourning still going on in this nation, I think the odds of being able to get a jury who can put the emotional impact of these events out of their minds is fairly minimal,” said Ghobrial’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Denise Gragg.

Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon declined Gragg’s request to postpone the trial, scheduled for jury selection Monday. But the judge said he would focus on possible prejudice in jury screening.

Gragg argued that a one-month postponement would cause only a minor inconvenience, while perhaps providing time for emotions to cool.

“That’s a small price to pay to make sure if the state takes his life, it takes it fairly,” Gragg said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. David Brent said the delay was unnecessary. He argued that Ghobrial’s experience in Egypt--he claims he was persecuted because of his Christian beliefs--might make him a sympathetic figure in the wake of the attacks.

“I just don’t think you can paint a broad brush against our jury pool and say this is something they couldn’t separate,” the prosecutor said.

Defendant Was Granted Asylum

Ghobrial, 31, fled Egypt in 1996 and entered the United States through Mexico. A U.S. immigration judge granted Ghobrial asylum after he testified that Muslim extremists pushed him into the path of a train, severing his left arm.

Two years later, Ghobrial was living in a rented shed behind a La Habra house. That year, he was arrested and charged in the murder of 12-year-old Juan Delgado. Police contend Ghobrial sexually molested the boy, killed him and cut his body into pieces with a butcher knife. Parts of the boy’s body were found encased in buckets of wet cement strewn about the neighborhood.

Ghobrial listened to Thursday’s proceedings through an interpreter.

Gragg said that Tuesday’s terrorist attacks have created irrational feelings against people of Arab heritage.

Judge Weatherspoon said he understands those concerns but that he would not delay the trial unless interviews with prospective jurors led him to believe that Ghobrial could not receive a fair trial.

“One of the first issues we’ll address is bias, and I want to see where we are at [that] point,” the judge said. “Right now, I don’t see how [a delay] is going to help in any way, shape or form.”