'83 Kahl Jury Swayed and Intimidated
Recent Sworn Affidavits Reflect Doubts

By Pat Shannan

At least two people from the North Dakota jury that sent Yorie Kahl and Scott Faul to prison for life have signed sworn affidavits attesting that they have lived with doubt for nearly twenty years. Marilyn Klimek wanted to vote to acquit but says she was intimidated over to the other side by another strong-willed juror. Verna Gleason, apparently confused by the judge's charge to the jury said, "I felt that Yorie Kahl and Scott Faul were innocent, but the law, as it was presented to us, left me no choice but to vote guilty."

Both jurors expressed doubts that Judge Paul Benson had conducted a fair trial and said that several jurors had made statements indicating that they had made up their minds to convict the two young men before the trial even started. Joan Kahl says that the adverse pre-trial publicity was responsible for this attitude among many North Dakotans.

Verna Gleason names August Pankow, Hannelore Tesch, and Linda Dunkley as three of several who voiced favoritism for the prosecution prior to the court hearing the evidence.

Marilyn Klimek: "I was extremely distressed about the way the trial was conducted and about the jury deliberations. At one point in the trial I reached a decision to express my deep concern. That night, however, I experienced severe chest pains from angina and became so concerned about my own health that I decided I could not go forward with a protest to the judge. I [also] did not have the strength to stand up for my convictions at the time the jury deliberated.

". . . During deliberations juror August Pankow said, `That's the law. Somebody comes to arrest you, you surrender. And that's it. There's no in-between there, no extenuating circumstances.'

It was later discovered that juror Pankow had grown up with and had been a schoolmate and lifelong friend of the prosecutor, Lynn Crooks, in Harkinson, North Dakota. Both Crooks and Pankow made these admissions on film in later years. It amounted to nothing less than a "stacked" jury, as these details should have been revealed at trial but were not. Yorie Kahl says that Pankow lied about knowing the prosecutor during the pre-trial voir dire.

After citing several other scenes of outrageous prejudice during the trial, Klimek concluded with, "It was all these kinds of statements that led me to conclude during the trial that the defendants were not getting a fair trial, that the jurors had not been screened carefully enough, and that there was a strong bias against the defendants even before the trial started. This is what I wanted to talk with the judge about, but I just could not find the courage and strength to do so during the trial.

"When the jury was polled [following the conviction], I told myself that I was going to say it was not my verdict. Somehow, when it came to me, I could not [speak out]. I am truly sorry today that I did not."

Verna Gleason spoke of the defense attorneys' blatant incompetence and the successful attempt by the U. S. marshals to frighten and intimidate the jurors:

"The marshals made a positive effort to instill fear of the Kahl family supporters in the jury. The marshals counted us each time we got on and off the elevator. They took different routes each time they drove us to and from the court. They rushed us in and out of rooms and in and out of vans. I believe the bomb threat during the trial was contrived to make us believe that the defendants were dangerous and that they had dangerous friends. The police dogs in the van accompanying us, which were supposed to be for our protection, were not necessary. I never fell for it. I never felt there was any danger from anyone. From the beginning of the trial, the whole picture was to instill fear in us."

Outside of the courtroom, the streets were lined with heavily armed marshals, which the jurors also saw each morning on their way to court.

Between the February shootout and the May trial, there was near-zero positive news coverage of the defendants and near-100% defamatory and extremely emotionalizing propaganda in favor of the government, scanning a total of more than 800 newspaper, radio, and television reports during the first six weeks following the incident. This does not include primetime specials, during the same time frame, that degraded the viability and lawfulness of the Posse Comitatus - begun with eerie music as the cameras zoomed in on the ambush scene, designed to instill in the public the belief that the shootout was the product of the defendants planning rather than that of the marshals.

Once, when the Fargo Forum, which publishes daily, mentioned the "terrorist tactics" of the U.S. Marshals, it recalled what it could recover of its initial papers and released a new issue on the afternoon of the same date, without the inflammatory words which had placed the government in a bad light.

Both Yorie Kahl and Scott Faul have claimed in their various appeals that the media barrage was orchestrated, controlled and manipulated by the U. S. Department of Justice.

Without a change of venue, it had become nearly impossible to strike an unbiased jury and give the defendants a fair trial.

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