Erm... Sorry, whatever the crime is and ESPECIALLY when are taken about the murder of an innocent girl and a Defendant on trial for her life, finding an unbiased jury must be more important than satisfying jurors desires, wants and conveniences.
I agree that finding unbiased jurors that can set aside anything they've heard about this case and judge it based on the evidence presented is the most important issue.
In this case, you might have a jury pool of 200 potential jurors. In that pool will likely be many who would be considered unbiased or able to set aside anything they've heard about the case and judge it based on the evidence presented.
But, because of the length of the trial, there will immediately be many dismissed, probably more than half, because of:
disability - hearing or visual loss
chronic illness
single parent, primary breadwinner, who would suffer financial loss due to the length of time away from work
business owner, who cannot be away from work for that length of time
person, who is the primary care-giver for an elderly person
person, who is scheduled for surgery during the two months of the trial
person, who can serve and is unbiased, but is opposed to the death penalty
person, who simply does not want to serve on this case and will claim they're biased or opposed to the death penalty in order to be dismissed
There are many reasons why the jury pool will be substantially reduced on an immediate basis. Among those who are immediately dismissed may be people who would be perfect jurors, but the length of the trial impacts their ability to serve.
So, we're left with a substantially reduced jury pool who will undergo questioning by the state and the defense. Both state and defense have an unlimited number of dismissals. A juror may be able to serve, be unbiased, and not opposed to the death penalty, but depending on which side is considering him or her, will be dismissed due to other factors.
Both the state and the defense will be looking at the job the person has, male or female, their life circumstances (married, single, divorced, widowed, children, no children, young, old, college education, high school education, etc.), and other factors in choosing the juror they think would favor their side.
I really think the length of the trial will impact potential jurors. For example, with a shorter trial of 2 - 4 weeks, the single mother-primary breadwinner might be able to serve because she has 3-weeks of paid jury duty, but not 8 weeks.
(Is it correct that every American can be called for jury duty sometime?)
