Juror in terror bombing trial reports an impasse

In an indication that jurors in the Ahmed Ghailani embassy bombing trial in federal court in Manhattan may be struggling with an impasse, one juror said in a note Monday that she had reached a conclusion different from the others and was being "attacked."

In the note, read in open court by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, Juror 12 also said her conclusion was "not going to change" and asked to be replaced by an alternate. Juror 12 is one of six women on the panel, which is anonymous because it is a terrorism case.

"Your Honor, Judge Kaplan, at this point I am secure and [have] come to my conclusion but it doesn't agree with other juror[s]," said the note, which was ungrammatical in some passages. "My conclusion it not going to change. I feel am been attacked for my conclusion."

Although the juror did not reveal her sentiments, both sides reacted as if she was a holdout for acquittal. The defense moved for a mistrial, arguing she might be coerced into changing her view, while prosecutors said there were hints that she was refusing to exchange ideas with the others, which might require her removal.

Kaplan called the jurors into his courtroom at 12:30 p.m., urged them to listen to each other, and sent them back to work. By 5:30, when they left, no other notes had come - which the judge took as a positive sign that dramatic action was premature, and might not be needed.

"Time is a great thing," he told the lawyers. " . . . All kinds of things happen, including unanimous verdicts." Ghailani, 36, is charged with conspiracy and murder in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which took 224 lives. He is the first former CIA and Guantanamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court.

He contends that he was a dupe for al-Qaida operatives, helping compile material for one of the truck bombs without knowing he was involved in a terror plot. The trial began a month ago, and the jury is in its third day of deliberations.

Juror 12, in a questionnaire and pretrial voir dire, identified herself as 53, and from the Bronx. She said a family member had served in Iraq in 2003, and on a scale of 1 to 5, she ranked her fear of a terrorist attack at 2.

Although the juror in her note asked if there was "any way I can be excuse or exchanged for an alternate juror," jurors are not typically allowed to drop out because of disagreements.

In the Ghailani case, Kaplan noted, a lot was invested in the trial, which included hundreds of exhibits and a 2,200-page transcript, while the jury had deliberated for just 13 hours total when the note was received.

"To expect unanimity in this short a period of time . . . is unrealistic," the judge said.