Trial by Newspaper

Committees of the Chicago Bar Association have announced that they will make two recommendations with respect to the formulation of public opinion on matters which are to be judged only by a jury. These recommendations are: 1) The adoption of a rule absolutely prohibiting the taking in court of any photographs; 2) the adoption of measures which will insure the reporting of court proceedings as solemn trials rather than as dramatic or bizarre incidents.

The Chicago Bar Association Record in its last issue says:

The present-day practice in reporting sensational law suits in the public press is typified by the publication of photographs of courtroom scenes. The attendant stories stress in like fashion those features which excite popular attention. This sating of the public appetite for the unusual not only brings the undesirable results incident to all scandal, but is peculiarly harmful in its effect upon the administration of justice. Thus we find the presentation of a trial in the light of a theatrical performance rather than a dispassionate inquiry into the merits of the case. This is bound to lessen respect for the law and its instrumentalities. Akin to this is the creation of an erroneous conception of the true working of the judicial machinery. Frequently, there results the formulation of a public opinion upon a matter to be judged by the jury alone-- And, of course, there is the catering to the public appetite for scandal, with the consequent detriment to the public welfare. It is believed that a coordinated effort on the part of the press and the bar will in time bring about the desired development in this important field of reporting, and that a uniform rule which will place all newspapers upon the same basis in this respect will be welcomed by them as well as by the bar.

Many of the Chicago lawyers who attended, last summer, the meeting of the American Bar Association in London (TIME, Aug. 4, et. seq.) were impressed with the way in which trials take place in England--in the court room and not in the newspapers. This experience, together with the publicity which attended the trial of Leopold and Loeb, is said to have induced the present stand of the members of the Chicago Bar.