Jury selection is to begin Sept. 10 for the capital murder trial of Rabbi Fred J. Neulander, charged with arranging his wife's murder inside their Cherry Hill home on Nov. 1, 1994.

A Superior Court judge set the date Friday even though she has not yet ruled on a change of venue, based on claims of excessive and prejudicial publicity. If that defense request is granted, it could mean jurors would be selected from another county.

The jurors then could be transported to Camden each day for trial, or the trial could be moved to another location.

During Friday's hearing, Superior Court Criminal Assignment Judge Linda Baxter dismissed one factor the prosecutor planned to use to argue for Neulander's execution if he is convicted of the murder charge.

In a notice of intent to seek capital punishment, the prosecution had said it would argue that Carol Neulander died during a robbery.

Under the theory of felony murder, all participants in a crime that leads to a killing are equally guilty.

But defense attorney Dennis Wixted argued that the death penalty in such cases was allowed as a punishment only for the actual killer.

The state, through Camden County First Assistant Prosecutor James Lynch, will still argue that execution is the proper penalty if a jury finds that Neulander arranged the murder of his wife.

Neulander was arrested in September 1998 for the slaying and indicted four months later, charged as an accomplice in the killing.

Six weeks before his trial was to begin in June 2000, Leonard Jenoff, a private investigator who had been befriended by the rabbi, confessed to the killing and implicated a second man, Paul Michael Daniels of Pennsauken.

Jenoff and Daniels both pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated manslaughter, and the two are expected to be prosecution witnesses against the rabbi at trial.

Neulander subsequently was indicted on a capital murder charge and his $500,000 bail was revoked.

He remains in Camden County Jail while awaiting trial.

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