In the Dock

The trial of the President's pal

Hand in hand, smiling and seemingly without a care in the world, Bert and LaBelle Lance last week strode into the Richard Russell Federal Building in Atlanta. They headed for the gold-upholstered ceremonial courtroom on the 23rd floor, site of the most unpleasant event in Lance's go-go career. His long awaited trial for violating U.S. banking laws was about to begin, and he professed to be eager to get started. Said Lance: "We're ready to move ahead."

One of President Carter's closest friends, Lance served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget until he was forced to resign in September 1977. Three of his associates are on trial with him: Thomas M. Mitchell, a member of the Georgia state transportation board; H. Jackson Mullins, a former pharmacist; and Richard T. Carr, a onetime Georgia bank president. The four defendants are charged with a variety of illegal acts in obtaining more than $20 million in loans from 41 banks in Georgia, Tennessee, New York, Hong Kong and Luxembourg. According to the indictment, they made false entries in bank records, misapplied funds, willfully overvalued property and conspired to gain unwarranted extensions of credit.

The first week of the trial was devoted to selecting a panel of 56 jurors and alternates, a painstakingly slow process. By week's end 53 had been chosen. All had been required to answer 70 written inquiries about their education, employment, health--even their hobbies and reading habits. In court, Edwin J. Tomko, a member of the Justice Department's fraud section, asked each potential juror in a high-pitched voice whether he or she had seen or heard any accounts of the case, formed an opinion or read LaBelle's book This Too Shall Pass. In a silky Southern voice, Defense Attorney Nickolas P. Chilivis asked jury candidates if they had had satisfactory or unsatisfactory experiences with banks, if they had ever applied for a loan, if they had ever had an overdraft. Asked whether she had heard anything about the case, Bookkeeper Rebekah M. Bartlett, 61, replied, "I'm sure we all have unless we've been out of the country."

Jury selection was so prolonged that Tomko joked, "At this rate, my newborn daughter will be in first grade by the time we begin." And in graduate school before they end. Together the two sides may call between 150 and 200 witnesses before the case goes to the jury and the fate of Jimmy Carter's old friend is decided.

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