Taint radio

The idea that some criminal trials are so charged that they must be moved to a new jurisdiction is almost never true, but it seems fine-tuned for the case of Michael S. Carona. For months, the former sheriff of Orange County has seen his upcoming corruption case covered in stunning, lurid, often darkly amusing detail. As the stories pile up -- of Cartier watches, a mistress, badges issued to campaign contributors and “pinhole” cameras hidden in the ceiling -- you might think the only options available to local jurors would be “guilty” and “especially guilty.”

Yet Carona’s lawyers have selected a particularly unpersuasive argument for changing the trial venue -- that a radio station whose main transmission tower in Orange County is currently out of commission has so tainted potential jurors that Carona cannot get a fair day in court. U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford is considering a motion for a move to a court somewhere out of the reach of the (seemingly ubiquitous) “John & Ken Show.”

At issue: a series of readings by the hosts, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, from transcripts of Carona conversations that were secretly recorded by federal investigators. When Carona’s legal team objected to the pretrial publicity, Kobylt and Chiampou rose to the challenge, dubbing this segment of the show “Taint the Carona Jury Pool” and advising fans called for jury duty to lie if asked about their radio listening habits.

Daring stuff -- and stupid too -- but the purpose of a venue change is to ensure that the accused gets a fair trial, not to address media buzz. Considering the size of the Burbank-based show’s listenership (about 1 million a month), the widely dispersed audience in L.A. and Orange counties and the vagaries of listeners’ habits, the probability that a substantial number of jury pool members have even tuned into “John & Ken’s” Carona coverage seems vanishingly small.

That Orange County residents have had ample opportunity to absorb prejudicial details about Carona’s case has less to do with his becoming fodder for radio talkers than with his having served for 10 years as the county’s top law enforcement official. Impartial jurors are not expected to have no opinions; they’re expected to hear the evidence presented in court and decide objectively on the specific charges. There is no reason to believe that the entire county is incapable of yielding a dozen such people, and ample reason to fear the precedent -- which would have implications for both free speech and speedy justice -- of singling out a radio show as the primary reason for a venue change.