Opening statements in the criminal fraud case against former state Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce are expected to be made today in federal court following a short interruption in jury selection yesterday.

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, in which his new Mercedes-Benz was rear-ended at an estimated speed of 5 mph.

Neither medical nor law enforcement personnel were called to the accident scene, but 11 months later, Mr. Joyce filed a bodily injury claim with State Farm Insurance, which held the other driver's policy, as well as his own company, Erie Insurance Group.

He was paid $440,000 by insurance companies for pain he said he suffered, including that he was left unable to golf, exercise or scuba dive.

But prosecutors claim that during the same time period, Mr. Joyce golfed in Jamaica, Florida and New York and went scuba diving in Jamaica.

The government contends that Mr. Joyce used the money to open a brokerage account, purchase an interest in a 1978 Cessna 206 airplane and buy a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The trial is expected to last at least two weeks.

Yesterday, during jury selection, Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr. ordered that the individual questioning of potential jurors, which is typically held before the public, be done behind closed doors in his chambers.

Local news organizations immediately challenged that ruling, and the judge heard an emergency oral motion on the matter.

David A. Strassburger, an attorney for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, asked that the judge reverse his order based on long-standing law.

Under a 1984 case, the public and media have a right of access to jury selection, "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 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Judge Cohill reversed his earlier decision, ruling that the rest of the voir dire process would be conducted in open court.