system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do they find 12 oblivious jurors for really high-profile court cases?

Like for Michael Jackson or James Holmes or the Boston Bombers or someone like that. How are there 12 people that haven't heard of him or the allegations against him, that are still competent and socially-aware enough to sit on the jury?

**edit:** Also, how do they ensure that the jurors don't learn more once the trial has started? Many trials last months or even years, so how do people not hear about the case in that time? And if they do hear about it, are they disqualified from jury duty?
gpt
Even in high-profile cases, there will be potential jurors who are largely or wholly ignorant of the case.  This is one of the reasons we have *voir dire,* the extensive question-and-answer process where the prosecutor, the defense attorney, and even the judge will ask prospective jurors questions to determine if they have potential bias or too much exposure to the case already.

As for keeping seated jurors unbiased, they're generally instructed to avoid all news coverage of the case and not to discuss it with anyone.  If there is extreme likelihood the jurors will have coverage of the case thrust upon them (protestors holding signs around the courthouse, for example) the jury will be sequestered--they'll be put up in a hotel and supervised to avoid undue influences.  If the judge has reason to believe a juror cannot remain unbiased, that juror will be excused and an alternate juror will be seated.  Jurors and alternates alike are there for the entire case.

For example, the jurors serving on the Manson case were sequestered, for months. It was a hardship for them.  And to avoid exposing them to the media circus surrounding the courthouse, they even had to occasionally cover the windows of the jury bus with soap to keep the jurors from seeing anything they should not.  At one point, Manson tried to force a mistrial by holding up a newspaper headline--"Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares" (an attorney had left the newspaper in the courtroom by mistake).  The jury was immediately polled: everyone of them said that they could remain unbiased, and furthermore, Nixon's opinion didn't matter because he was not sitting there listening to the testimony as the jury was.  Juries tend to feel like privileged insiders, *they* are the experts on that particular case.  Manson didn't get his mistrial.