Sheppard v. Maxwell Revisited -- Do the Traditional Rules Work for Non-Traditional Media?
2008; Duke University School of Law; Volume: 71; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1945-2322
Autores Tópico(s)Legal Systems and Judicial Processes
ResumoIn the late summer of 1954, all across northern Ohio--indeed, throughout much of the nation as a whole--people pondered this question: Did Dr. Sam Sheppard kill his pregnant wife Marilyn in their Bay Village home on Lake Erie, just west of Cleveland? Certainly my mother thought so. Whether ironing, cooking, sewing, or just biting her lip with her ear next to the radio, she was only one of many in the western-Ohio town of Wapakoneta, fifty-three years ago, seemingly transfixed by each day's new shocking developments in the investigation. I was a mere lad of seven, but the scenes of my family, our neighbors, and the community in general discussing and debating Dr. Sam's guilt or innocence remain deeply etched in my memory, surpassed only by the first criminal trial of O.J. Simpson. One thing the Sheppard case had in common with the Simpson case was the notion, held by many segments of the public in 1954, that the media were making too big a deal out of the case--pandering to the more sensational aspects of journalistic endeavors. Much of the criticism of the press subsided, though, when Dr. Sam was convicted. But the entertainment side of the media certainly knew a good story when it saw one, and while the case worked its way through the appeals process, the TV series entitled Fugitive began its four-year run in 1963. Then, in 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the massive, pervasive and prejudicial publicity attending Dr. Sam's prosecution prevented him from receiving a fair trial consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (1) Thanks to successful arguments by F. Lee Bailey, Dr. Sam would be tried again on remand and this time would be acquitted. By the time the Supreme Court granted certiorari for Dr. Sheppard, it had already begun wrestling with some of the inherent tensions between the First and Sixth Amendments. (2) But Sheppard became the critical precedent when it held that responsibility for safeguarding the fundamental fairness and integrity of the trial rests solely with the judge. The Court even stressed that a responsible press has always been regarded as the handmaiden of effective judicial administration, especially in the criminal field .... The press does not simply publish information about trials but guards against the miscarriage of justice by subjecting the police, prosecutors, and judicial processes to extensive public scrutiny and criticism. This Court has, therefore, been unwilling to place any direct limitations on the freedom traditionally exercised by the news media for what transpires in the court room is public property. (3) In short, media have no legal responsibility for the fairness of any criminal trial. Instead, the Court in Sheppard not only took great pains to detail the pervasiveness and sensationalist nature of the coverage of the case, but also took the judge to task for failing to counter or blunt the impact of the publicity, specifically enumerating steps the Court believed could have been taken: Bearing in mind the massive pretrial publicity, the judge should have adopted stricter rules governing the use of the courtroom by newsmen, as Sheppard's counsel requested. The number of reporters in the courtroom itself could have been limited at the first sign that their presence would disrupt the trial. They certainly should not have been placed inside the bar. Furthermore, the judge should have more closely regulated the conduct of newsmen in the courtroom. For instance, the judge belatedly asked them not to handle and photograph trial exhibits lying on the counsel table during recesses. (4) In addition, the Court felt the judge should have insulated the witnesses; controlled the release of leads, information, and gossip to the press by police officers, witnesses, and counsel; proscribed extrajudicial statements by any lawyer, witness, party, or court official divulging prejudicial matters; and requested the appropriate city and county officials to regulate the release of information by their employees. …
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