A convicted murderer will not be granted a mistrial despite worries that the jurors who will decide whether he lives or dies have been tainted by prejudicial remarks reported in the press, a federal judge ruled Friday.

In the wake of his Sept. 8 murder conviction in the 2003 death of an Atlanta restaurant owner, Rejon Taylor, 24, expressed disappointment in the decision during several recorded phone calls, calling the verdict “racist” and the Chattanooga jurors who delivered it “little redneck-looking folks.”

During a subsequent hearing out of the presence of the jury, federal prosecutor Steve Neff said Mr. Taylor actually had called them “racist rednecks,” an inaccurate term that nevertheless was widely reported in the media and would become the subject of a local talk-radio show.

Some jurors admitted later, during private interviews with U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier, that they had heard of the remark through indirect exposure to the media reports, court documents show.

During a hearing Thursday, Mr. Taylor’s team of four defense lawyers fought hard to have the jury dismissed, saying the inaccurate comment represented a “personal attack” on the very people who now have Mr. Taylor’s life in their hands.

“It is a life-and-death situation,” defense attorney Leslie Cory said Thursday. “It is a prejudice the jury is not going to be able to get over.”

Judge Collier disagreed in his ruling issued Friday, saying it appeared the jurors had “followed the court’s admonishments to avoid outside publicity and not consider anything they heard outside the courtroom.”

“Most of the jurors who were aware of the comments heard them from coworkers who joked that they were rednecks,” Judge Collier wrote in his opinion. “Most of those jurors did not know what the jokes referred to and many did not attribute the comments to (Mr. Taylor) at all.”

Jurors are scheduled to reconvene Monday, when they will begin hearing testimony from Mr. Taylor’s family and friends, who will plead with them to spare the young man’s life.

The defense also requested more time to question jurors about their exposure to the media in the event a mistrial was not granted, but Judge Collier denied that request.

“Allowing the defense to interview jurors at this point would only serve to remind jurors of the remarks and connect them to (Mr. Taylor),” Judge Collier wrote.

Head defense attorney Bill Ortwein did not return calls Friday seeking comment, and Mr. Neff declined to talk further about the case until a sentence is reached.

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