What is the effect of a judge's will-o-the-wisp approach to jury selection in a sexual assault trial?

It is apparent from the transcript that the judge with the most laudable of motives undertook to protect the rights of the defendant by isolation the jury from all influences except those which the judge, by advance analysis, concluded were proper. But it is impossible for a trial to occur in a vacuum, or for a jury, unless locked up, to avoid all contact with the outside world. In following a will-o'-the-wisp the judge, at the instigation of the public defender, found himself forced further and further away from the conduct and practices of a public trial as they exist at common law, and in the direction of civil, equity, and canon law procedure under which evidence is privately taken in advance by deposition, analyzed and made a subject for argument, and only then presented to the trier of fact in open court. (See Scott v. Scott, [1913] A.C. 417, 432-433, 470-472.) This tendency appeared throughout the proceedings but was present in its most aggravated form when a considerable portion of the trial took place before the prosecutor was allowed to make an opening statement. As a matter of abstract logic the procedure was impeccable. But as a matter of the practical disposition of the business of the court, with due recognition to the interests involved, it provided a startling departure from the trial procedure prescribed by the common law and by statute. (Pen.Code, 1093.)