DECATUR - The rules for selecting a jury will not be changed for Jon White, a former Unit 5 teacher accused of molesting 11 children in Urbana and Bloomington.

White is accused of predatory criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of female students at Thomas Paine Elementary School in Urbana between August 2005 and December 2006. He taught second grade at the school before his arrest on Jan. 31, 2007.

Jon White

White also was a teacher at Colene Hoose Elementary School in Normal. He faces charges in McLean County that he molested two girls at the school between October 2004 and April 2005. That case has been continued until the Champaign County case is resolved. A March 26 status hearing is set in McLean County.

On Friday, Champaign County Judge Harry Clem turned down requests from defense lawyers Carol Dison and Brett Olmstead to question potential jurors individually when White's trial gets underway Feb. 25 in Decatur.

The common practice for selecting a jury is for the judge and attorneys for the state and defense to ask questions of the jurors in panels of four. Olmstead argued that allowing would-be jurors to hear the answers of others could influence the remaining members of the jury pool.

The judge also denied a request from White's lawyers to allow the defense additional peremptory challenges during the jury selection process. The defense and the state are each given seven challenges that allow them to excuse jurors without stating a reason in felony trials that don't involve the death penalty.

Jury summons have gone out to 150 potential Macon County jurors for the trial, which is expected to last three weeks. Among the more than 150 potential witnesses on the state's witness list are the children White is accused of molesting. The trial was moved from Urbana because of extensive media coverage of the case.

The former teacher faces life in prison if convicted of at least two of the predatory criminal sexual assault charges.

White has been free on $175,000 bond - 10 percent of the total $1.75 million bond set in both counties - since last June.