Free Press & Fair Trial

The U.S. Supreme Court last week raised an issue that has long worried thoughtful U.S. editors. The issue: Do sensational newspaper stories in criminal cases endanger the right of an individual to a fair trial? The question was highlighted as the court reversed the conviction of two Negroes sentenced to death for raping a 17-year-old Groveland, Fla. housewife. (A third defendant, sentenced to life imprisonment, did not appeal.) While the unanimous reversal was based on the fact that Negroes had been excluded from the trial jury, Justice Robert H. Jackson went further in his concurring opinion. Wrote Jackson: Even if Negroes had not been excluded, a fair trial would have been impossible because of inflammatory newspaper stories. "The trial was but a legal gesture to register a verdict already dictated by the press . . ."

While the defendants were still awaiting trial, said Jackson, one local newspaper (the Orlando Sentinel--circ. 29,349) published a cartoon picturing vacant electric chairs. The caption: "No Compromise-Supreme Penalty." As mob violence swept the county, headlines appeared which Jackson thought inflammatory. Examples: the Sentinel's FLAMES FROM NEGRO HOMES LIGHT NIGHT SKY IN LAKE COUNTY, the Tampa Tribune's NIGHT RIDERS BURN LAKE NEGRO HOMES. Although the sheriff announced that the men had confessed, said Jackson, the "confession" itself was never introduced in evidence. Moreover, said he, the trial court had thrown out, as irrelevant, evidence that the defendants had been brutally beaten during questioning. But newspapers, in reporting existence of a "confession," had conveyed to the jury "evidence" never used in court. Concluded Jackson: "Newspapers, in the enjoyment of their constitutional rights, may not deprive accused persons of their right to a fair trial. These convictions, accompanied by such events, do not meet any civilized conception of due process of law."

Florida papers grumbled at the rebuke. But many other editors regarded it as a well-merited reminder that freedom of the press also carries the grave responsibility that it not be turned into license. Few newsmen want the British system, where the press is forbidden to print anything which might influence the trial in any way. But most would agree with Manhattan's World Telegram & Sun: "Freedom of the press is a precious right [which] too often has been abused at the expense of other precious rights equally entitled to the protection guaranteed by the Constitution."

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