The retrial of former school administrator Wesley Earnest, whose murder conviction was tossed out in July, will take place in Amherst County, a judge has ruled.

Bedford County Circuit Court Judge James Updike accepted the argument of defense attorney Joseph Sanzone that publicity surrounding Earnest's first trial, held in April, would make it difficult to seat an impartial jury if the second trial were held in Bedford. News outlets from Lynchburg, Bedford and Roanoke covered Earnest's lengthy trial, giving local residents detailed accounts of the acrimonious and deteriorating relationship between Earnest and his estranged wife, Jocelyn.

In his ruling Tuesday, Updike also ordered the jury to be selected from a pool of Nelson County residents. According to Bedford County Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wes Nance, Updike wants Nelson jurors because they live in a different media market than Bedford and Amherst residents and are therefore less familiar with the details of the case.

Nance said Updike picked Amherst over Nelson as the site of the trial because of construction work going on outside the Nelson courthouse, in Lovingston.

Earnest is being held in jail in Lynchburg.

A Bedford County jury convicted Earnest, 40, of murdering his estranged wife at her Forest home in December 2007 and accepted prosecutors' contentions that he staged her death to look like a suicide.

But Updike threw out the murder conviction in July after discovering that jurors had reviewed Jocelyn Earnest's journals during their deliberations, though the journals had not been entered into evidence. The journals cast Earnest, a former Chesapeake school administrator, in a harsh light.

The new trial is scheduled for Nov. 8.