Jury pools can be tainted by prosecutors' prejudicial statements, revelations about criminal records, and media images that sensationalize the crime or the alleged perpetrator.
Denham, who has made his letter public, asks O'Donnell: "Given these prejudicial statements, there must be serious questions about the decision to ask Mr Hunt to carry out this quasi-judicial role.
But he also knew information about the investigation that he could not share with anyone, including other trustees, and was still bound by rules prohibiting prosecutors from making possibly prejudicial statements.
Mr. Puccio, who defended Mr. Friedman, had demanded that the trial be moved out of New York to a city that was untainted by the prosecutor's "prejudicial statements".
The request, filed Tuesday in Federal District Court in Kentucky, seeks to silence all parties and "to prohibit inflammatory or otherwise prejudicial" statements to the news media or public.
It is true that in some cases biased or prejudicial statements may be made by some persons interviewed and comments by others may be objectionable or conceivably false.
Prosecutors requested the order once again, arguing that Mark O'Mara, Mr. Zimmerman's lawyer, was jeopardizing the trial by making prejudicial statements to the traditional media and using a legal blog, Facebook page and Twitter posts to disseminate his opinions.
At the request of the defense, the court placed a gag order on the media to ensure no prejudicial statements are made before the trial.
They say the judge's ruling that the case should be limited to the sheet music of the two songs was not adhered to, meaning "prejudicial and irrelevant" elements were brought in to play: both Thicke's statements about his influences in the song and the testimony of the musicologist Judith Finell fall under that umbrella, they say.
