Anthony Kennedy

“ We found "good reasons to apply the statutory presumption of correctness to the trial court's resolution of these questions" because "the determination has been made only after an extended voir dire proceeding designed specifically to identify biased veniremen" and because "the determination is essentially one of credibility, and therefore largely one of demeanor." ”

“ Reviewing decisions in this category, we indicated that " [t] he proceedings in these cases were entirely lacking in the solemnity and sobriety to which a defendant is entitled in a system that subscribes to any notion of fairness and rejects the verdict of a mob." Murphy v. Florida, supra, 421 U.S., at 799, 95 S.Ct., at 2036. We have described Irvin's holding as being that "adverse pretrial publicity can create such a presumption of prejudice in a community that the jurors' claims that they can be impartial should not be believed." ”

“ In an age when a national press has the capacity to saturate the news with information about any given trial, I am dubious of a proposed rule that a juror must be disqualified per se because of exposure to a certain level of publicity, without the added pressure of a "huge . ”