WATERLOO - A Black Hawk County judge has stepped down from an excessive force trial after the plaintiff raised an issue with a comment made during jury selection.

Joyce Wilder, who is suing the county and a deputy over injuries she allegedly received while in jail in 2004, said Judge Kellyann Lekar's story about choosing jurors by the size of their lips was racially charged.

"That offended me because I'm a black woman," said Wilder, who said the statement kept her up all Tuesday. "I don't believe it was a joke."

Lekar said Wednesday morning the comment was supposed to be race-neutral, and she didn't intend it to be taken in a racial context.

"I had no intention to make a racial statement," Lekar said.

Even so, she apologized to Wilder in open court for offending her and recused herself from presiding over the trial to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Jury selection started Tuesday for what was to be a five-day trial.

Lekar made her comment when attorneys for the plaintiff and the defense were picking which potential jurors to strike.

As Wilder tells it, the judge talked about a lawyer who picked people with thin lips and not people with thick lips.

She saw the "thick lip" statement as inferring blacks.

Lekar said the comment was part of a story she has told all of her juries to break the silence during the strike process and to explain the science, or lack of science behind, jury selection.

Some lawyers, she said, have a psychological approach to picking jurors. But, she continued, a former law partner of hers chose based on lips - finding those with thicker lips to be more generous and those with thinner lips to be less generous.

"I referred to people in general with big lips," she said.

Eight jurors and one alternate was chosen Tuesday morning, and one black female was on the panel. Opening statements followed in the afternoon.

On Wednesday, Wilder arrived in court with Sharon Goodson, president of the local NAACP, and raised the issue.

A series of closed-door conferences between attorneys and their clients followed, and Wilder's excited voice could be heard spilling into the courthouse hallway.

The trial, in which Wilder is claiming a deputy caused permanent damage to her arm when he used a wrist lock-type technique after she was arrested for vandalism, will be rescheduled for a later date under another judge.

The defense said the deputy used proper force.

Contact Jeff Reinitz at (319) 291-1578 or jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com.