The Region - News from July 25, 1986

Jury selection in the long-delayed “Twilight Zone” movie manslaughter trial began, with more than 100 potential panelists given 13-page questionnaires asking everything from their employment to their tastes in television shows and movies. Another 68 potential jurors were dismissed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Roger Boren after they claimed that participating in the four-month-plus trial would prove an undue hardship. Boren, meanwhile, rejected a request by defense attorneys for director John Landis and four associates that the trial be continued for 90 days because of pre-trial publicity. The attorneys took exception to published comments by the prosecutors that Landis might have been charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two child actors.