38 Questions Used To Screen Potential Jurors in Libby Case

In the opening moments yesterday of the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges that he lied during a federal investigation into a CIA leak, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton read aloud 38 questions that lawyers for both sides had agreed on to help screen potential jurors. They included mundane questions about whether potential members of the jury panel knew the people involved in the case, had ever been a victim or perpetrator of a crime, had read news about Libby's alleged crime.

And then there were four intriguing questions exploring potential jurors' beliefs about human memory.

The memory questions go to the core of Libby's defense. The prosecution plans to try to prove that Libby, the former chief of staff of Vice President Cheney, deliberately lied to FBI investigators and a grand jury about how he learned that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA and what he said to several reporters about her. The defense wants to establish that Libby told the investigators what he believed to be true -- but that his memory simply failed because his job was so demanding. Here is what the jurors were asked:

· Is there anyone who believes that everyone's memory is like a tape recorder and therefore all individuals are able to remember exactly what they said and were told in the past?

· Is there anyone who feels that a person could not honestly say something about a matter he or she truly believed to be . . . true when that person several months earlier actually said something totally different about that same matter?

· Is there anyone who believes that it is impossible for a person to mistakenly believe that he or she was told something by one person when in fact the person was actually told the information by someone totally different several months earlier?

· Is there anyone who believes that it is absolutely impossible for a person to believe very strongly that he or she has certain memories about something, even though it is determined that those memories are inaccurate?

-- Amy Goldstein