
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 9, 1993                   TAG: 9307090118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOISE, IDAHO                                LENGTH: Short

JURY ACQUITS MAN IN KILLING OF MARSHAL

White separatist Randy Weaver said he learned something by being acquitted Thursday of killing a federal marshal last year in a shootout at a remote mountain cabin: The system that he hated really can work.

A jury that heard the defense try to put the government on trial also exonerated co-defendant Kevin Harris of murdering the marshal. Jurors also acquitted Harris of four lesser charges and convicted Weaver of just two of the additional six lesser charges he faced.

The charges stemmed from last summer's shootout and 11-day siege at Weaver's northern Idaho cabin that left the marshal and Weaver's wife and son dead.

The verdicts followed 20 days of deliberations, an Idaho record.

Defense attorney Gerry Spence said Weaver leaned over after the verdicts were read and said, "I've learned something about the system. This is a good system. This system will work."

"To a large extent it wasn't so much the evidence but a lack of evidence and confusion," jury foreman John Harris Weaver said. "We kind of put ourselves on trial - if we were on trial, would we want to be convicted on this kind of evidence?"

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB