AUBURN – A state defense lawyer  says Joshua Keadle can not get a fair trial in Nemaha County.

Jeffrey Pickens of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy says local conditions and pretrial publicity make it impossible to secure an impartial jury.

He said Keadle, who is charged with the murder of Peru State College freshman Tyler Thomas, is asking the court to appear without shackles and in street clothes.

However, Keadle is currently an inmate at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institute, and would be in shackles while being transported to the courthouse.

Pickens said there is a chance that jurors would see him in shackles and in state custody.

He said Keadle and the escorting deputies would enter the courthouse through one of two public entrances. He said jurors would also see Keadle in shackles, if he is escorted to a restroom.

Ty Thomas disappeared Dec. 3, 2010 and prosecutors say Keadle was the last person to see her alive.

Attorneys for Keadle, who is imprisoned on a conviction of raping a 15-year-old girl in a Midland University apartment in 2008, say Thomas had been drinking alcohol that night and may have fallen into the Missouri River.

The defense is asking that the Sept. 16 jury trial be held in another Nebraska county.