Jury Seated For `Oprah' Beef-Defamation Trial -- Talk-Show Host Will Tape In Amarillo For Now

AMARILLO, Texas - The Oprah Winfrey show is under way at a Texas courthouse.

A jury was selected in one day to hear a more than $12 million defamation lawsuit filed by Texas cattlemen against the television talk-show host. Opening statements were to begin today.

The TV star took notes and listened intently as a pool of 57 was narrowed yesterday to eight women and four men - none of whom are avid "Oprah" viewers.

Winfrey left the courthouse without saying anything about the case, but not without dropping some names of stars who might come to tape shows with her while the trial is under way: Houston Rocket forward Charles Barkley. Actress Janine Turner. Singer Kenny Rogers.

"We'll have Clint Black . . . oh, and Patrick Swayze," added Winfrey, who was greeted with cheers when she left for her lunch break.

Both the trial and the visiting stars are making big news in this Panhandle city of 165,000.

The cattle industry is the region's economic engine, and U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson dismissed 13 prospective jurors for implying they couldn't objectively hear the case. No regular viewers of Winfrey's show made the jury cut. At least three people with past beef connections did.

Amarillo cattle feeder Paul Engler sued Winfrey over comments about beef safety made on "Oprah" by Winfrey and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman.

Lyman said feeding ground-up animal parts to cattle, a practice banned in the United States last summer, could spread "mad-cow disease" to humans in the United States. To applause from the studio audience, Winfrey exclaimed: "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger!"

After the broadcast, already slumping cattle prices fell to some of their lowest levels in a decade. The plaintiffs are seeking to recoup losses of more than $12 million, plus unspecified damages.

Defense attorneys blame the collapse on factors such as oversupply and decreased demand. The case also is likely to include free-speech issues.

"Mad-cow disease," or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a brain-destroying disease that has afflicted cattle in Britain since the late 1980s. In 1996, British scientists announced that humans might have contracted a similar brain disease by eating infected beef.

The plaintiffs are suing under a 1995 Texas law holding liable anyone who makes false and disparaging statements about perishable food products.