Twenty candidates out of 100 have made it to second round of questioning in Trayvon Martin case
Prosecutors and defence lawyers in Florida have searched for a third day for potential jurors unaffected by blanket media coverage of last year's killing of the unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.
Of about 100 prospective jurors who were summoned to court on Monday and filled out a questionnaire, 75 have so far been dismissed and 20 have made it through to a second round of questioning, Seminole County criminal court spokeswoman Michelle Kennedy said.
Six jurors will decide the fate of George Zimmerman, the former neighbourhood watch volunteer who claims self-defence in the shooting of Martin on 26 February, 2012. Jury selection began on Monday and has been moving slowly.
Zimmerman, 29, is charged with second-degree murder and faces up to life imprisonment if convicted in a case that ignited protests and national debate about race, guns and equal justice before the law.
Aware of the polarising issues surrounding the trial, circuit court judge Debra Nelson lined up 500 potential jurors for a preliminary round of questioning, mostly focused on individual media exposure to the case.
"I think it would be pretty hard to avoid," one man said on Wednesday when asked if he had seen news coverage. He said his first impression of the shooting was that "it was a tragedy either way... the whole thing is a tragedy."
Kennedy said lawyers would continue questioning prospective jurors individually about pre-trial publicity until they had selected a group of about 30 people, who would then be questioned about more commonplace jury selection topics.
Legal experts say the process could last well into next week.