Jury selection for the murder trial of the three defendants charged with the murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery did not go smoothly. Ultimately, only one black person was selected to be a juror in a county where more than 25% of the population is black.

After a grueling process that lasted two and a half weeks, a jury was selected on Wednesday in the trial of the three white men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old Black man who was chased through a suburban Georgia neighborhood before being fatally shot by one of his pursuers in February 2020.

The jury, which is made up of residents from Glynn County, where more than a quarter of the population is Black, includes 11 white people and one Black person. Anxiety over what the jury’s racial makeup would be had been palpable among observers and participants in recent days.

In the ordinary course of events, it’s the prosecution accused of cleansing the jury of black people because, in the ordinary course of events, the defendant would be black and the defense would seek a “jury of his peers,” black people who were (hopefully) more understanding of, if not sympathetic to, the defendant’s circumstances. This case presented the opposite, white man on trial for killing a black man. The prosecutor made her “reverse Batson” motion.

Linda Dunikoski, a special prosecutor from the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office, tried on Wednesday to challenge the defense attorneys’ removal of eight Black potential jurors, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that makes it unconstitutional to strike people from a jury solely because of their race.

After reviewing the eliminations one by one, Judge Timothy R. Walmsley of Glynn County Superior Court acknowledged that “quite a few African American jurors were excused through peremptory strikes executed by the defense.”

On the surface, this showing suggests that the defense wanted its own “jury of their peers,” white jurors whose sympathies would be closer to the defendants. Or to be even more precise, not black jurors for whom the killing of the dead black “victim” would be too close to their experience as to go unpunished.

“But that doesn’t mean,” he continued, “that the court has the authority to reseat, simply, again, because there’s this prima facie case.”

The judge ruled that for each of the eight stricken jurors, the defense had provided a “legitimate, nondiscriminatory, clear, reasonably specific and related reason” as to why the potential juror should not be seated.

Without knowing the very specific information upon which the strikes were exercised, or at least the reasons argued to the court, it’s impossible to dispute the judge’s decision, as much as striking eight black jurors emits the smell of rotting reverse Batson. It’s not very hard for a relatively articulate lawyer to present “nondiscriminatory” reasons for striking a juror. Even a claim of a snarling side eye, that no one but defense counsel noticed, toward the defendants showing bias can suffice.

But in a case like this, it’s particularly understandable why there is a dearth of black jurors, and it’s not the defense’s fault.

Ms. Dunikoski, the lead prosecutor, said in court that she was hoping for jurors who were a “blank slate.” But the killing was one of the most notorious in South Georgia in decades, and many prospective jurors — the court system sent out 1,000 jury notices — said they had already formed opinions about it.

“This has been the strangest jury selection process I have ever seen,” said Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the Arbery family. “We understand there are some unique circumstances. There’s very few people who wouldn’t have heard about this case. Most have developed an opinion about the case. So I understand that the attorneys in general will have some questions that we’re not used to.”

When the media plasters its news coverage, the video, the editorials and op-eds about what happened and why, it poisons the pool from which the jurors are drawn. This isn’t to say that this story wasn’t immensely newsworthy. It was. But in a county in Georgia where this killing was overwhelmingly covered and of such extreme interest, what were the chances that they could find any black person who didn’t know about it, hadn’t seen the video, hadn’t read or heard something about this outrageous killing, hadn’t formed an opinion?

And that’s the key, that it wasn’t merely the news itself, but the formation of a belief as to the guilt of the defendants that makes a person unqualified to serve as a juror. The court or other side at trial may try to rehabilitate the potential juror by asking such questions as whether they can be open-minded, impartial, fair, listen to all the evidence, follow the judge’s instructions and decide the case based not on what they knew before, heard in the media, but only upon the evidence presented to them at trial. How does a person unhear what they’ve already heard about the case?

But for the efforts of the media, there is a good chance there would be no trial. This killing could have been whitewashed, explained away as an unfortunate but understandable tragedy. To its credit, the media didn’t let that happen, and refused to let the killing of Ahmaud Arbery fade into memory. The price for this effort, however, is that much of the jury pool was tainted by the coverage, and even these defendants are entitled to a fair and impartial jury. A jury of their peers.

Then again, both sides get to exercise their peremptory strikes, removing those potential jurors they believe to be biased. While the racial makeup of the jury is an easy hook for outsiders to foresee bias, there’s no basis to guess that the 11 white jurors won’t be fair and impartial, doing the job that’s demanded of them of assessing the evidence and reaching the conclusion it requires. The optics may be bad, but if the prosecution chose wisely, there is no reason to believe that the jury won’t do its job.