Jurisprudence

After five days of deliberations, a jury was impaneled in the Los Angeles Municipal Court trial of USC football players Michael Jones of Panorama City, Willie McGinest of Long Beach and Jason Oliver of Bakersfield. They are charged with misdemeanor counts of battery, sexual battery and false imprisonment in a dormitory incident last July involving a USC graduate student.

The jury is made up of eight women and four men, including five blacks. The alternates are two men and a woman. Race became an issue during the selection process when the defense attorneys questioned the exclusion of some black jurors by the prosecuting attorney. The alleged victim is white and the defendants are African-American.