By: A black man charged with helping those accused of killing a white couple has lost his bid to relocate his trial over concerns that intensive coverage from news media, especially conservative bloggers, could bias jurors.
Eric Boyd is charged as an accessory after-the-fact in the killings of Channon Christian, a 21-year-old University of Tennessee student, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, in January. Four other people, all of them black, are charged in state court with murder.
Bloggers and other critics who see large media outlets as too liberal have accused those organizations of not covering the case thoroughly, and have said the slayings would get more attention had the victims been black and the defendants been white.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton determined in a Nov. 30 ruling that Boyd could still get a fair jury.
"The court cannot find that the level of negative pretrial publicity has affected the entire potential jury pool for the Knoxville division from Knox and surrounding counties," Guyton wrote.
Boyd's attorney, Philip Lomonaco, had complained that TV reports falsely included his client among the alleged killers, and that bloggers had inflamed racial tensions.
Lomonaco was particularly concerned about erroneous reports on the Internet because "it may be there forever (and) it's everywhere. It's not a newspaper you read and throw away."
Boyd, 34, could get 15 years in prison if convicted. His trial is set for February.
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