Politics

McDougal Jury Goes Back To Work

April 7, 1999 / 6:36 PM EDT / AP

Signaling that Susan McDougal's testimony made a deep impression, jurors sent out three notes in their first day of deliberations asking whether they may consider her motives for refusing to testify in the Whitewater probe.

As jury deliberations resumed Friday, the judge in the case revealed that jurors sent a third note late Thursday focused on McDougal's state of mind when she declined to testify to grand juries in 1996 and 1998.

The jurors asked whether they could consider her state of mind in deciding whether she is guilty of criminal contempt.

Earlier notes asked for a definition of "innocent reason" a phrase in written instructions for the jury and asked whether there might have been an "innocent reason" for refusing to testify, even if McDougal acted "willfully" in violating a court order directing her to cooperate with Kenneth Starr's probe.

In each case, U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. tossed the question back to the jury, referring the panel to the instructions he read them before deliberations began Thursday morning.

During five days on the witness stand, McDougal said she feared Starr would charge her with perjury unless she falsely implicated President Clinton and his wife in wrongdoing.

McDougal lawyer Mark Geragos said that the jurors, who began deliberations Thursday, obviously "are having trouble with the issues. That would lead me to believe they are split in some manner."

On Friday, prosecutor Mark Barrett pointed to a jury instruction which says that McDougal's possible belief that Starr was trying to get her to lie is not a defense against the criminal contempt charges. Jurors were instructed they could consider that defense only in deciding the third charge, obstruction of Starr's probe.
In closing arguments Wednesday, Geragos told the panel that McDougal had an "innocent reason" for not answering grand jury questions, saying Starr's tactics were "something you expect to see in the Third Reich."

McDougal would be guilty of criminal contempt if she "willfully" violated a court order to testify and did not act "by accident, mistake or other innocent reason," the judge instructed.

Barrett said "innocent reason" does not include the fact that a defendant does not like the prosecutor. Prosecutor Julie Myers portrayed McDougal as a chronic liar and publicity-seeker who refused to testify because she hated Starr.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, if convicted, McDougal faces roughly 27 months in prison on each of three charges.