First, he drew up a 60-item questionnaire that tested the potential jurors’ moral and religious beliefs about suicide. Sample questions included: "Do you believe doctors should be allowed to assist in suicide for terminally ill people? Do you consider that murder or mercy?" and "What is your opinion of Jack Kevorkian, favorable or unfavorable?

Anyone who answered "murder" to the first question and "unfavorable" to the second were out for cause, said Varinsky, who also consulted the defense in the Bernhard Goetz subway killing case in New York and the illegal campaign funding case of impeached Arizona governor Evan Mecham.

"Through all of these questions we got people to commit themselves over and over again to being unfair," Varinsky said," and a pattern emerged. It became so obvious these people couldn’t be fair that they were caused out, and that left us with good to neutral people."

In addition to those with strong religious beliefs, Varinsky also advised the defense to avoid conservative and elderly people for the jury. He added that a 1993 Harris poll had showed that African-Americans had strongly disapproved of Kevorkian’s assistance in 20 suicides. Since the trial was held in Detroit, a city with a large black population, jury selection was challenging, he said. In fact, only four of the jurors were white.

"I knew going in that African-Americans would be hard to play this case to," he said, "so we focused on finding higher educated, young liberals who are irreligious."

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