Indian-origin surgeon Dr. Jayant Patel, accused of the man slaughter of three patients in Australia, has been granted the rare privilege of polling potential jurors to establish if they are biased due to adverse media coverage.
The 62-year-old former doctor was in the Brisbane District Court to ask for the right to poll jurors in the wake of saturation media reporting over his years spent at the Bundaberg Base Hospital.
According to the Courier Mail, Barrister Ken Fleming, QC, for Patel, told the court that just simply searching Jayant Patel's name or the term 'Dr Death' on Google could yield anywhere up to 661 million online articles.
Fleming said Patel had been subjected to unprecedented media scrutiny over 'many years now' and that he should have the right to poll the jury panel to weed out potentially biased jurors, the report added.