Alabama trial sought for Rudolph

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Prosecutors asked a judge Friday to keep Eric Rudolph's first trial in Birmingham, disputing defense claims that media coverage of a deadly abortion clinic bombing made a fair trial impossible.

The government's request was filed ahead of a hearing planned for next week on a defense request to move the case outside of north Alabama.

Separately, prosecutors also asked a court to make defense attorneys file more of their motions in open court rather than as sealed documents available only to the judge.

Rudolph is jailed without bond awaiting an Aug. 2 trial in a 1998 bombing that killed a police officer and critically injured a nurse outside an abortion clinic in downtown Birmingham.

Rudolph also is charged in the bombing that killed a woman in Atlanta's Olympic park in 1996 and a pair of bombings in Atlanta in 1997.

The defense claims its surveys show many potential jurors around Birmingham have been influenced by news coverage of the bombing and have already decided Rudolph is guilty.

But prosecutors submitted an analysis of the defense polling that concludes the survey methods were flawed and that no change of location is needed.

Media coverage of the clinic bombing has been "primarily factual in nature, focusing on the crime itself rather than" on Rudolph, prosecutors argued. News stories have not depicted Rudolph as guilty, the government claimed.

The defense contends years of publicity between the bombing and Rudolph's capture last year depicted him as an anti-government zealot who opposes abortion.

The government challenged defense secrecy in a separate motion.

Of 89 documents filed by Rudolph's attorneys, 58 have been submitted in a way that prevents prosecutors from having immediate access to the papers, prosecutors claimed.

Prosecutors asked the court to review and unseal any documents that concern potential evidence rather than administrative matters.