The Jury Selection in the Mitchell‐Stans Conspiracy Trial

This is a study of the voir dire proceedings in the trial of the United States v. John Mitchell and Maurice Stans in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in the spring of 1974 (docket no. 73 Cr. 439). The major charge was conspiracy to impede a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of Robert L. Vesco, a financier, a fugitive at the time of the trial, in return for a $200,000 cash contribution to President Nixon's reelection campaign.' The sheer scope of the proceedings was unusual; 196 prospective jurors were examined, producing a record of over 2,000 pages. A great amount of statistical data and an unusual report on the jury's deliberations2 promised insights of some value. In other ways too, the case was not an ordinary one. Both defendants had been members of President Nixon's cabinet, as attorney general and secretary of commerce, respectively. Some of their alleged misdeeds, not totally unrelated to the ones under indictment in the case, had been aired before nationwide television audiences; both defendants and their main accuser, John Dean, had testified before Senator Ervin's Watergate Committee. Because of its public exposure, the judge desired to sequester the jury. This decision seemed to have been prompted by an expected