In its search for the jury to decide the capital murder case of Michael Addison, the Hillsborough County Superior Court has sent notices to 1,200 potential jurors.

Not everyone will show up for jury selection, which is scheduled to begin with a fraction of the overall jury pool tomorrow, but that number - four times the number the court typically summons for a first degree murder case - highlights the difficulties that the court anticipates in selecting jurors to decide the case.

"It's a capital case, so that's an issue," said Clerk John Safford, whose office sent the notices. "And there's been such widespread publicity about it - that's the second factor."

Addison, 28, is accused in the October, 2006, shooting death of Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs. The jury in his case will decide not only Addison's guilt or innocence; if he's convicted, the same jury will preside over a second trial to decide whether to sentence Addison to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Tomorrow, the first group of jurors will be asked to fill out detailed questionnaires about their views on crime and capital punishment - as well as politics and religion. Next, they will come in for individual question-and-answer sessions called voir dire interviews, in which they will answer still more questions, designed to evaluate their backgrounds and biases.

Prosecutors on the case said that they couldn't discuss the jury selection process this week because of the closeness of the trial.

Richard Guerriero, one of three public defenders representing Addison described the jury he was seeking this way: "They have to be able to be fair. They can't be biased by any information coming into the court. They have to be able to follow the law and the judge's instructions. They have to be able to participate in a long trial."

Jurors in a capital murder case also have to pass a special test that is not used in other criminal cases. Because the same jury must decide the defendant's guilt and his sentence, the U.S. Supreme Court has found that jurors in capital cases must be open to the possibility of imposing a death sentence. Potential jurors who say they are unwilling to vote for death will be eliminated, under a process called "death qualification."

The Addison juror questionnaire asks a number of questions about the death penalty. It asks potential jurors to rank their support of the measure on a scale of 1 to 10, and asks them if there are circumstances where they would never, or always, choose death. It also asks whether they would avoid voting for a guilty verdict to avoid a decision about whether to impose the death penalty.

Coverage challenge

Intense news media coverage of the Briggs shooting and Addison's prosecution so far will also cause many potential jurors to be dismissed. Addison's lawyers argued in April that the trial should be moved out of Manchester because the publicity surrounding the trial and the public outcry against the police shooting made it impossible to pick a fair jury there. That motion was denied, and several lawyers who have worked on high-profile cases say that it may be a struggle to find jurors who arrive at court without some preconceived notions about the case.

"You'll be hard-pressed to fid a juror who hasn't read anything about it," said Larry Vogelman, a Manchester defense attorney who has worked on death penalty cases. The trick, he said, is finding jurors who haven't yet made up their minds about Addison's guilt. "If somebody managed to live in Manchester or a surrounding community and didn't even know this officer was killed or this trial was going on, I'm not sure you want that person on the jury," he said.

Lawyers can ask the judge to remove any juror for any "cause" that would affect their ability to be impartial. In addition to opposition to the death penalty, or preconceived notions about the case, jurors could also be excluded if they have strong feelings for or against law enforcement officers or they know someone involved in the case.

Other jurors may be dismissed by the judge if they demonstrate that serving in the jury would be a medical or financial hardship.

Lawyers are also permitted to dismiss a limited number of jurors for no reason at all.

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