Publicity not always barrier to trial by jury

Efforts to improve our legal system have generated more scrutiny of the role of juries, with particular attention focused on the way they are selected. The trial of Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City highlights one potential obstacle in seating an impartial jury - pretrial publicity, which McVeigh's attorney's have already made a major issue.

Usually, those called to jury duty have no prior knowledge of the accused or the offense. But when an incident has been reported by the media, there is a possibility people have formed a fixed opinion before they come to the courthouse. Defense lawyers often use such risk of jury contamination as an argument to exclude jurors or move a trial's location.

Lack of prior knowledge might be an ideal state of mind for a jury, but attaining it is sometimes impractical, as the McVeigh case points out. The media have a more dominant presence in our lives than they did, say, 20 years ago. Given the circulation of newspapers and the number of news channels and updates on television, it's hard to imagine anyone across the country hasn't heard of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The question is, How much pretrial publicity can our legal system tolerate and still work?

Polls show the public retains a healthy skepticism against believing everything it sees and hears in the media, in part because those reports contain statements and information from advocates of a particular point of view - politicians, lawyers, corporate executives, coaches - who are trying to put their own spin on the news. Filtering through such misdirection to determine credibility goes hand in hand with the right of free speech. It's part of our job as Americans.

And what would be the makeup of a jury with no prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City incident? Would we want a trial this important to be decided by people who are so cut off from the larger community that they are ignorant of the events that affect us all?

We need to guarantee fair juries, of course. But in achieving them, our legal system should be guided by common sense, not by extreme positions. Just reading the news doesn't automatically prevent the impartial weighing of facts in a courtroom.