McMartin Trial Jury Selection Starts Today

Three years after the defendants in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case pleaded innocent, the long-awaited trial in what was once the largest sex abuse scandal in U.S. history is about to begin.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Pounders has ordered the first group of 80 potential jurors to report to his 15th-floor courtroom today for the start of a jury selection process expected to last at least two months.

Although the start of jury selection is a milestone in the much-delayed case, the lawyers who will try it are weary from years of legal battles and seem less than ecstatic that the trial finally is getting under way.

“In many respects, I’m obviously pleased that we’re finally beginning jury selection, but I also think that there is something seriously wrong with a system that allows a case to take three years to get to trial,” said chief prosecutor Lael Rubin.

‘It’s . . . an Indictment’

“It’s not fair to defendants, it’s not fair to victims and it’s really an indictment of the entire judicial system.”

Raymond Buckey, 28, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 60, are the only remaining defendants.

They are charged with 99 counts of child molestation and one count of conspiracy for allegedly sexually abusing 14 of their pupils at the now-closed Virginia McMartin Pre-School in the affluent community of Manhattan Beach.

Raymond Buckey’s lawyer, Danny Davis, also expressed a weariness about the beginning of jury selection.

“I’m not meaning to be whimsical, but this is a Biblical event,” Davis said. “Early Judeo-Christian principles suggested that things like God and immortality always were and always will be, and that seems to be the nature of the McMartin case.”

About the only enthusiasm came from Peggy Buckey’s lawyer, Dean Gits.

Looks Forward to Trial

“We are all, I think, looking forward to the commencement of this trial and ultimately the end of it,” he said.

Co-prosecutor Roger Gunson said: “If you’ve been in court and listened to how long it takes to get through the simplest of motions, you appreciate the fact that the real trial is going to start.”

Since the case was initially filed in early 1984, it has been scaled down dramatically.

The two Buckeys and five other teachers at the nursery were originally charged with more than 200 molestation acts stemming from alleged sexual assaults on 42 of their pupils.

In addition, prosecutors alleged, “hundreds” of other children had claimed they had been raped, sodomized, drugged, forced to play bizarre nude sex games and participate in horrific satanic rituals by the seven teachers and up to 30 other people.

However, citing insufficient evidence, Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb, who presided over the 18-month preliminary hearing in the case--the longest such hearing in California history--dismissed hundreds of charges in the summer of 1985 and in January, 1986. Thus far, the case has cost the county more than $5 million.

Then, one week after all seven defendants were ordered to stand trial by Bobb in January, 1986, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner announced that he was dismissing all charges against the five co-defendants because the evidence against them was “incredibly weak.”

Shift in Public Opinion

Not only has the case shrunk, but recent events, according to Judge Pounders, have resulted in the public’s no longer assuming the defendants are guilty.

In turning down a defense motion last month to move the trial outside Los Angeles County because of prejudicial publicity, Pounders said he believes that public opinion began to shift when Reiner dismissed charges against the five co-defendants, including Raymond Buckey’s sister and grandmother.

Pounders suggested that another factor contributing to the change in public perception was the startling allegations made by former McMartin prosecutor Glenn Stevens, who now maintains all seven defendants are innocent.

In 30 hours of taped interviews with a Hollywood screen writing couple, Stevens alleged that he and Rubin withheld evidence about the alleged mental instability of the woman--now deceased--whose claims triggered the case.

After a long hearing, however, Pounders ruled that no crucial evidence was deliberately withheld.