BOSTON – As Neil Entwistle traveled from England to the United States to face charges in the slaying of his wife and baby daughter, every step of his journey was reported breathlessly. Even his plane’s refueling stop in Bangor, Maine, was big news.

Now, Entwistle’s lawyer is claiming that the intense media attention will prevent Entwistle from getting a fair trial.

Some attorneys say the state’s jury selection process has enough safeguards to screen out potentially biased jurors, but others say the Entwistle case has received such a barrage of coverage that it will be difficult to find people who haven’t already formed an opinion about Entwistle’s guilt.

“The coverage to date is the modern equivalent of putting someone in the coliseum before the lions are released,” said veteran Boston defense attorney J.W. Carney Jr.

“The media is directly responsible for inciting the mob,” he said.

Entwistle, 27, is charged in the Jan. 20 deaths of his wife, Rachel, 27, and their 9-month-old daughter, Lillian. Prosecutors say Entwistle shot his wife and daughter in their suburban Hopkinton home after becoming despondent over mounting debt. Investigators believe Entwistle may have planned to kill himself, too, but did not go through with it.

The case captured media attention from the moment the bodies were discovered. Photographs of the smiling, wholesome-looking family were pulled from their Web site and splashed across the front pages of newspapers both in the United States and Great Britain, where Entwistle was raised and the family lived until last summer.

Legal pundits began debating every twist and turn on television talk shows, where the case has become a favorite topic, much like the O.J. Simpson and Scott Peterson murder cases.

Entwistle fled to his parents’ home in Worksop, England, the day after the murders, fueling the media fire.

Then, several days after Entwistle was arrested in London, more than 200 pages of court documents were released publicly, including allegations that Entwistle searched the Internet for ways to kill people and commit suicide, and also looked up local escort services in the days before the slayings.

Those sensational details were reported as authorities were preparing to bring Entwistle back to Massachusetts. His arraignment Thursday was covered by dozens of local, national and international media organizations.

Entwistle’s lawyer, Elliot Weinstein, called the media coverage a “publicity mill,” and said he believes that anyone who followed it “has already formed an opinion with respect to Mr. Entwistle’s guilt.”

Despite the saturation coverage, some attorneys say they are convinced that Entwistle’s lawyers will be able to find jurors who are impartial.

“This is not the first case ever where most jurors will have heard of the case, and that’s why a judge has such discretion and leeway in placing those 12 jurors in that box,” said David Yas, publisher and editor-in-chief of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

“You do not need a jury of people who haven’t heard about the case. You only need a jury of people who are open-minded enough to hear the evidence before them and make an intelligent decision based on that evidence only,” Yas said.

Boston attorney Jeffrey Newman, a former prosecutor who now specializes in media law, said the state’s jury selection process allows defense attorneys and prosecutors to submit detailed questions for a juror questionnaire that is designed as an initial screening process for potentially biased jurors. Judges may then ask additional questions of individual jurors and can allow attorneys to ask even more questions.

“In a case like this, a judge is probably going to be inclined to ask a lot of those questions to make sure that this will be fair,” Newman said.

The Entwistle case is not the first high-profile case in Massachusetts in which defense lawyers have questioned their client’s ability to find an impartial jury. In 1997, the trial of British au pair Louise Woodward, charged with killing a baby by shaking him violently, received frenzied international press coverage. The trial of John Salvi III, who killed two people and wounded five others at two Brookline abortion clinics in 1994, also received intensive coverage.

Jeffrey Abramson, a jury specialist who is a professor of politics and legal studies at Brandeis University, said he does not believe it is possible for Entwistle to find jurors who can truly presume Entwistle innocent.

“The best the defense can hope for is a jury of people who, although they think Entwistle is probably guilty, will still demand proof, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Abramson said.