04/16/01
CHANDA TEMPLE
News staff writer

Lawyers in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing case today will review lengthy questionnaires filled out Monday by 92 potential jurors in the murder trial of a former Klansman.

Jury selection is usually done in public. But the intense interest in the murder trial of 62-year-old Thomas E. Blanton Jr. has forced prosecutors and defense lawyers to close the process, including keeping potential jurors' names secret.

"It's just an extra precaution," U.S. Attorney Doug Jones said outside the Mel Bailey Criminal Justice Center. "You want to make juries feel as comfortable as possible to do their civic duty, and that's what we're trying to do here."

"If we let a blank questionnaire out, then the public will have information that is designed for only the jurors to know and to respond to. We in no way want to encroach upon jurors' privacy here," Robbins said.

Blanton, 62, is to go on trial next week. Prosecutors say he helped plant a bomb that on Sept. 15, 1963, killed four girls preparing for a Sunday youth service. Blanton, who has been a suspect in the case since shortly after the explosion, has denied any involvement.

At 9:55 a.m. Monday, Blanton and Robbins rode the courthouse elevator to the basement courtroom where the potential jurors would assemble.

"You ready for this zoo again?" Robbins asked before the two stepped from the elevator into the gaze of three television cameras. Blanton, wearing a checkered sports coat, gray slacks, a light blue, button-down shirt and shiny, black wingtips, responded with a simple "mmm-hmmm."

Blanton, Robbins said, "is nervous, scared - as he should be."

Outside the courthouse, reporters swarmed around former Klansman Wyman Lee, who said he has been subpoenaed as a witness in the case. Several years ago, Lee allowed Blanton to live behind his house in a small mobile home.

"All I can do is tell the truth," Lee said.

Inside, the unusually large jury pool - three times the normal size - started at 2:30 p.m. with 100 members, including Birmingham Municipal Judge Carnella Green Norman.

Forty-seven of the potential jurors were black and 53 were white.

Circuit Judge James Garrett excused eight of them swiftly after asking how many had responsibilities that would prevent their serving on a sequestered jury.

Jurors completed the surveys, which will remain under seal, late Monday afternoon. They will return to court Thursday, when lawyers will call them in for individual interviews. Prosecutors and Robbins will take today and Wednesday to examine their answers.

Blanton is one of two men indicted last year in the bombing of the civil rights rallying point. Garrett indefinitely postponed the trial of Blanton's co-defendant, 71-year-old Bobby Frank Cherry, after a psychiatrist found Cherry mentally incompetent to stand trial. The prosecution is seeking a second opinion from a different psychiatrist.

Only one person, Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss has been convicted in the case, and that was in 1977.

During the jury selection process inside the courthouse, Roosevelt Jones, a 71-year-old black man, stood outside in the afternoon sun with mixed feelings about the new trial.

"We waited a long time," Jones said. "We might as well let him go. His best days are over with. There should have been a trial a long time ago - not some 37 years later. Whatever they do now is not going to bring these little girls back."

But a prepared statement by the congregation of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Monday struck a guardedly hopeful note: "While a 38-year delay is not a real source of elation or encouragement, we do believe that it is never too late to do what is right." News staff writer Adam Goldman contributed to this story.