PERSPECTIVES ON THE PRESS AND THE COURTS : Sequester Us All, Not Just the Jury : Finding the truth has become secondary to finding the photogenic. And the real issues aren’t even on the table.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work:

The police arrest a suspect on probable cause; the case goes to a prosecutor if there is sufficient evidence. The defense gets discovery of the prosecution’s case. Prosecutors do not simply seek a conviction, but--as public officials--are primarily concerned with establishing the truth. Defense attorneys represent their clients’ interests, but within limits; they also are officers of the court. There is a trial. Potential jurors are questioned to select an unbiased group. Its primary purpose is to look at the demeanor of the witnesses, apply common wisdom and determine what actually happened. The jury does this by listening to testimony under oath, including cross-examination. A judge furthers the process by screening out inherently unreliable and prejudicial evidence and tells jurors how to apply the law to what they believe happened and how strongly they must believe it happened.

Not a perfect model, perhaps. But as Churchill said about democracy, it may be damned well better than any of the alternatives.

Here’s how it’s working in the Simpson case:

The defendant is arrested with plenty of probable cause and the case properly goes to prosecutors. But officials start leaking prosecution evidence selectively to the media. The defense then responds with more of the same, and soon all of the counsel are posturing shamelessly. Meanwhile, the case is everywhere. It is news day and night.

The Simpson case appeals in one stroke to all four of the media’s howling biases: It deals with a celebrity, it involves drama and violence, it caters to our cultural morality-play of good versus evil in caricature and it involves an unexpected twist--someone whom we all love may have done something unspeakably evil.

The jury selection begins. Counsel are carefully plotting: How does it play to mock juries? What hairdo should I have? Am I coming across as too unfeminine? Is the defense team in disarray? Who is plotting the strategy? Should my prowess in boxing be featured to contrast with my boyish gentility? What a devastating package I am!

The questioning of prospective jurors has begun. They are not open-ended questions to elicit bias but, as is now the custom, they are meant to create bias. Both sides vie for maximum bias--not the same thing as eliminating it.

Those who argue against sequestration of the jury really have only one argument: The well has already been poisoned by a combination of hot-button-pushing and media frenzy. And in its defense, the media invoke the heavy artillery, the First Amendment: Even a delay in the sacrosanct right of continuous speculation and rumor-mongering transgresses it. The media have corrupted a reasonable process for getting at the truth by wrapping themselves in the flag. The price being paid is that “what happened” is not being determined by 12 persons searching for the truth from a crucible of reliable evidence under oath; it is being determined based on third-hand hearsay, people negotiating book contracts with film careers dancing in their heads, informal polls of the recipients of this garbage and, it appears, Nielsen ratings.

Yes, the well has been poisoned. And it’s worse than that. Digressing a bit from this media circus, there are real issues out here that aren’t being covered. Children’s programs have been sliced from the state’s budget. One-third of our high school students are not finishing in four years or are dropping out entirely. The state Forestry Board conceded that it has unlawfully allowed virtually all of the state’s original forests to be destroyed. We had 19,000 prisoners incarcerated in 1977; now we have 126,000, costing about $31,000 a year. One-quarter of California’s children are living below the poverty line and more than 2 million have no medical coverage. Our political campaigns are a disgrace to truth-telling and civilized discourse. Oh, a few of these matters get scant passing attention; but they pale in importance to what O.J. had for breakfast or the hourly big news break. (On a recent night, it was “O.J. masks for Halloween: In bad taste or not? News at 11.”)

Of course the jury should be sequestered for the trial, because as bad as the well is poisoned, it can be poisoned even more, and we need someone in a position to look at evidence under oath and to make a decision from it. The rest of us hooked into our cable systems are certainly not going to be doing it. It would be nice to separate entertainment from truth-seeking.

But I have a better idea than sequestering the jury. How about sequestering all of us? How about giving us a hiatus until after the trial? Come on guys, it’s moved past embarrassing--you’re well into self-satire.