R. Kelly jury complete as sides argue racial makeup

Among the six jurors chosen Thursday was a young woman who told Judge Vincent Gaughan that she had been raped, but could put the traumatic experience aside and hear the case fairly.

Defense attorneys later asked to have her dismissed based on the rape, but Gaughan rejected the request. "She looked at Mr. Kelly and said she could give him a fair trial," the judge said.

Kelly mostly kept his head down at one end of a conference table while potential jurors were questioned, scribbling notes on yellow index cards in his lap. Between the sessions with each juror, Kelly stretched his arms and yawned.

But when one young man, later named as an alternate, told the judge that pictures don't always reveal the whole truth of a situation, Kelly looked up and nodded his head in agreement.

Another of the people to sit on the jury was a 68-year-old man who immigrated from Communist Romania 38 years ago. He praised the U.S. justice system, saying he understood the accused are presumed innocent.

"The score sheet at the beginning of the trial — zero, zero," he said.