Lawyers Set Ways To Select the Jury For Hussain Trial

Defense and prosecution lawyers agreed yesterday on procedures for selecting the jury for the rape trial of former Harvard-affiliated doctor Arif Hussain. Jury selection, which Michael Reilly, one of Hussain's defense attorneys, calls "the most important part of the trial," will probably begin Monday.

Hussain faces trial on charges that he raped one woman patient and sexually assaulted another while they were under his care at Waltham Hospital in 1978 Hussain and two other doctors at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital were convicted last June of raping a nurse the summer before.

The lawyers on both sides orally agreed that Middlesex County Supperior Court Judge Andrew G Meyer will screen potential jurors for impartial views about doctors and the pretrial publicly. Then both the defense and the prosecution can each reject up to 16 prospective jurors without giving specific reasons. Asst. Dist. Atty. William H Kettlewell '73 said yesterday.

After a brief two-hour Good Friday session. Judge Meyer granted a defense request for an out-of-state subpoena to get mental health records for one of Hussain's alleged victims. Defense Attorney Kenneth M. Goldberg said yesterday that he expected the records would show that one of the alleged victims had been committed to a mental institution.

Judge Meyer deferred other defense motions that also seek to undermine the credibility of prosecution witnesses until he receives more information Monday.