Jury selection in the federal criminal trial of former state Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce is continuing this afternoon.

The process began yesterday morning, and today Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr. ordered that the individual questioning of potential jurors be done behind closed doors in his chambers.

The voir dire process is typically done before the public, and local media organizations challenged Judge Cohill's decision.

David A. Strassburger, an attorney for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, made an emergency oral motion to the judge just after noon today asking that the questioning be done in public.

Under a 1984 case, the public and media have a right of access to voir dire, "so that all the world can see what transpires, to hear all the questions that are asked and the answers given," Mr. Strassburger said.

He argued that the only way that can be reversed is for there to be a showing of a compelling governmental interest. When that is the case he said, there must be a narrowly tailored remedy, such as asking an especially sensitive question of a potential juror privately at sidebar.

Upon hearing the motion, which was joined by W. Thomas McGough Jr. for the Post-Gazette, Judge Cohill reversed his earlier decision, ruling that the rest of the voir dire process would be conducted in open court.

"This case is entirely clear to me," Judge Cohill said of the controlling precedent.

Mr. Joyce, a retired judge from Erie, is charged with nine separate counts of mail fraud and money laundering stemming from two insurance claims he filed after a low-speed accident in 2001.

He was paid $440,000 by insurance companies for pain he said he suffered after his new Mercedes-Benz was rear-ended at an estimated speed of 5 mph.

The trial was moved to the federal courthouse in Pittsburgh because of the publicity the case has received in Erie.

Opening statements are expected to begin either late today or tomorrow.