How have the courts dealt with the issue of publicity during voir dire?

We find, however, that the pretrial publicity in this case was not substantial enough to have required the trial judge to interrogate the prospective jurors at length about it. The judge was aware of the publicity, and clearly it was his judgment that the pretrial publicity was not a significant danger to a fair trial. ⁴⁰ His concern seemed greater about the possible effects of publicity during trial. The pretrial publicity in this case does not resemble the situation in Silverthorne v. United States, 400 F.2d 627, 639 (1968). Unless a trial judge clearly has erred in his estimation of the action needed to uncover and prevent prejudice from pretrial publicity, an appellate court should not intervene and impose its estimate. The court closest to the situation can best evaluate the proper way to walk the difficult line between a vigorous voir dire to determine any possible bias and avoidance of creating bias by specific questions which add 'fuel to the flames' in suggesting the presence of controversial issues. Beck v. Washington, 369 U.S. 541, 548, 82 S.Ct. 955, 8 L.Ed.2d 98 (1962). The court below did not abuse its discretion by the way it handled the question of pretrial publicity.

B. Publicity During Trial