BY SHELLY HASKINS
Staff Writer

UNION, S.C. (7/15/95) -- The fifth day of jury selection in the Susan Smith double murder trial proved to be the most productive as four more jurors were seated, bringing the total to 10.

Jury selection will continue today at 9:30 a.m. with two more jurors to seat before lawyers for Smith and the state begin work finding six alternates.

Questions raised by Smith's lead lawyer David Bruck about the possibility of finding enough women to balance the jury began to resolve themselves Friday afternoon after one black woman in her 20s was chosen.

A second black woman, in her 50s, was on the jury by the time court finished Friday. But later in the evening, presiding Judge William Howard decided to excuse her from service because her husband is disabled.

Three men, one black and two white, also were selected Friday. The jury now consists of three black men, four white men, two white women and one black woman.

By the end of the day Friday, 54 of the remaining 105-member jury pool had either been seated or excused, leaving the lawyers 51 people to choose the remaining jurors and alternates.

As Howard and the lawyers began questioning the two black women, it seemed unlikely they would be qualified to serve because both said they could not vote for the death penalty under any circumstances.

But after both Howard and Bruck posed hypothetical situations in which heinous crimes were committed with no remorse by the defendant, both ended up saying they could consider the death penalty if the crime warranted it.

The second of the two women initially seated, a housewife in her mid-50s, broke into tears after being told by Howard that she had been selected. She had hoped to be discharged because her husband is partially disabled.

But Howard qualified her after learning that the man could drive and has a 30-year-old unemployed daughter who could help with his care.

Although Solicitor Tommy Pope could have used his two remaining strikes to eliminate the two women, who had obvious feelings against the death penalty, Pope did not. Bruck used one of his four remaining strikes to eliminate a white male in his 60s who seemed to have a strong bias for the death penalty.

"I feel comfortable with them," Pope said. "Obviously we have strikes left, and both said they could listen to both sides."

Howard later changed his mind about the black woman in her 50s and eliminated her from the jury.

Before the black female juror was seated, Bruck noted to the court that 18 of the 23 women interviewed up to that point had been dismissed because of opposition to the death penalty, and no black women had been approved to serve. He said the problem with seating jurors because of opposition to the death penalty stems from the widespread knowledge of the Smith case.

Smith, 23, led authorities on a nine-day search for her two children, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex, before confessing to letting her Mazda Protege roll into John D. Long Lake with them strapped inside.

"I think this is very specific to this case," Bruck said. "People are having questions about this case because they know a lot about this case and they know a lot about this defendant."

Pope suggested a possible change of venue for the trial in response to Bruck's complaints, but neither side has formally requested it.

The other jurors seated Friday were a black man in his early 30s, a white man in his early 50s and a white man in his early 40s.

The black male juror selected said Smith's initial story that a black man had kidnapped her children angered him, but he was angry at the state of South Carolina, not Smith.

"They tried to make a race issue out of it," he said. "She, in my mind, just knew that would be more believable in the South, so I really didn't hold it against her."

The 50ish white male juror was seated despite having a terminally ill father who committed suicide, as Smith's natural father did, and having had three cousins ages 9 to 11 drown when he was a child.

The other white male juror was seated even though his brother-in-law had been convicted of murder.

Smith, who lawyers say is being treated with the anti-depressant drug Prozac, smiled slightly at family members and turned to give them a quick wave with her index finger as the proceedings started Friday. She was attentive throughout the all-day jury selection, sometimes conferring with Bruck's jury consultant during the questioning.

Her ex-husband, David Smith, attended the morning session, but did not return in the afternoon. His father, Charles David Smith, and David's stepmother, Sue Smith, attended both sessions.

David Smith was stone-faced during much of the proceedings and only glanced at his former wife once, when the first juror was questioned about murder and the death penalty.

After Friday's proceedings, Bruck was asked to respond to a statement by state Attorney General Charlie Condon that the defense was posturing for a plea bargain and was "playing games" to create an O.J. Simpson-like atmosphere at the Smith trial.

Bruck was visibly shocked by Condon's statement.

"I think it's time for the attorney general to read the Constitution of the United States," Bruck said. "It is very distressing that a lawyer, much less the attorney general of South Carolina, would make such a statement."

Both Bruck and Pope said Friday there was no chance for a plea bargain at this point.

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