Legal News

Judge rejects motion to move Carona trial over shock jocks

By Jason Siegel

U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford rejected the motion to move the corruption trial of former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The motion to move the trial was largely brought on by an AM talk radio show, Carona's attorney Brian Sun told the Times.

"The John and Ken Show" on KFI-AM 640 have a regular segment called "Taint the Carona Jury Pool," where they ask listeners to lie to get onto Carona's jury in order to convict him as well as read transcripts of the secretly recorded conversations where Carona allegedly discussed covering up evidence of cash and gifts he received.

"We are mocking the system. We have no respect for it," John KobyIt, a co-host on the show, told the Orange County Register. He told the Times that he didn't trust jurors to be intelligent enough, since they couldn't get out of jury duty.

Rejecting the motion, Guildford said the commentary was inappropriate but that the court wouldn't overreact to radio satire or overestimate the importance of the commentators and gullibility of their listeners, the Times reported.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on May 22, 2008 (boomark / email).