Jefferson Legal Team Aims To Avoid Freezer Burn
Times-Picayune (excerpt)

Attorneys for Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, are asking Virginia District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III to craft a questionnaire to ensure that potential jurors for the congressman's corruption trial, now slated for January, aren't biased by all the pretrial publicity.

"The fact that $90,000 was found in Mr. Jefferson's freezer has been repeated so often in print and electronic media that it has virtually become a national catchphrase," the attorneys said in their filing to Ellis.

"And in addition to the problems created by pretrial publicity, this case involves a number of 'hot button' issues, including race, the reputation of Louisiana's politicians, and business dealings with Nigeria, about which jurors may have biases or pre-formed opinions."

The attorneys note that when they prepared their brief this month, a search of "Jefferson" and "freezer" on Google produced 605,000 results. By last week, the number had grown to more than 800,000.