Judge in Drew Peterson case preparing jury pool

Hundreds of potential jurors in the murder trial of former police officer Drew Peterson were asked to fill out questionnaires Friday, although no trial date has been set and Peterson wants the trial moved.

Will County Judge Stephen White said he was proceeding under the assumption that the trial will remain in the county, and was trying to protect a jury pool. After potential jurors entered the courtroom, Peterson, wearing a gray suit, stood and greeted them.

"Good morning, folks. How are you?" he said.

White instructed the group to avoid any media coverage of the case and to avoid looking it up on the Internet.

Peterson, a former Bolingbrook police sergeant, has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge in the 2004 death of his third wife Kathleen Savio, whose body was found in a dry bathtub.

Savio's death was originally ruled an accident. But after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared in October 2007 and Peterson was named a suspect, Savio's body was exhumed. Her death was ruled a homicide after a new autopsy was conducted.

A hearing was scheduled for later Friday on Peterson's request to move the trial from Will County because of pretrial publicity — some of it courted by Peterson and his attorney, who went on numerous television and radio shows.

White planned to have 240 people fill out questionnaires Friday. He gave potential jurors a list of 493 people whose names could come up during the trial to see if they knew any them.

He said he did not know when the trial would begin, but said they should not change any plans.

White also set an Oct. 2 hearing on a motion filed by Peterson's attorneys challenging the constitutionality of a hearsay law passed in Illinois in 2008 and widely viewed as a response to the case.

Prosecutors have said the law would allow Savio to "testify from the grave" by admitting into evidence her past statements that she believed Peterson wanted her dead.

But Peterson's attorneys said in their motion that the law "would allow gossip, innuendo, rumor and back-fence scandal to come into a court of law and masquerade as evidence."

Peterson has been jailed on $20 million bail since his arrest in May. A judge refused to reduce his bail after prosecutors claimed he tried to pay someone $25,000 to kill Savio before allegedly drowning her himself.