American Idol Season 8 Eliminations: Jasmine Murray, Jorge Nunez

by Jarrett Martineau | March 11, 2009 at 07:58 pm

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American Idol Season 8 began this week with the lucky 13 contestants facing elimination and on Wednesday two of the hopefuls were sent home — Jasmine Murray and Jorge Nunez were voted out of the competition.

Performing songs by the legendary Michael Jackson, Jasmine Murray sang “I’ll Be There” and Jasmine Nunez tried his hand at “Never Can Say Goodbye”.

Here is the full list of the remaining 11 finalists still competing in Season 8

A new rule revealed Wednesday gives the “American Idol” judges the power to save one singer voted off by the fans, but that wasn’t enough to keep the first two finalists from getting the boot. Jasmine Murray and Jorge Nunez were sent home, reducing the number of contestants to 11.

The new rule for Season 8 of Idol is called "The Judges' Save" and it allows Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, and Paula Abdul to keep one of the contestants on the show — even if they've been voted off by Idol viewers.

It’s a one-time only do-over that allows the judges to keep the lowest vote-getter around for another week if all four agree the unlucky loser was voted off too soon.

The full extent of this rule change will likely be felt more fully when the number of singers still in the running becomes fewer.