Free Press & Fair Trial

In criminal cases the prosecutor is often the first to run to the press with word that he has a confession and is sure of a conviction. On their part defense counsel are just as eager to try their cases in the press. Do such shenanigans hinder justice? They certainly do, says the New York State Bar Association's Committee on Civil Rights. At Saranac Inn, N.Y. last week, the Bar Association was considering a committee proposal to stop lawyers from talking to the press. The proposal called for state legislation making it "unlawful" for either prosecutor or defense attorney to talk before trial about evidence in a criminal case.

But the committee reckoned without Alexander F. ("Casey") Jones, executive editor of the Syracuse Herald-Journal, onetime head of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and a debater at the lawyers' convention. Jones interpreted the proposal as "an out and out press gag." Said he: "If this had come up 15 years ago, I would guess the author to be Goebbels. [For every] case where newspapers have [caused a man to be] sent to prison in a miscarriage of justice, [there are] ten where citizens won freedom through the ceaseless efforts of hard-working newspapermen.'' After hearing that, the New York lawyers substituted a watered-down proposal to "condemn as unprofessional press releases and public statements by lawyers . . . which may interfere with a fair trial ..." On getting word of this, the Atlanta Bar Association went further.

Its executive committee passed a resolution calling for legislation that would make a newspaper liable for contempt if it published "one-sided or prejudicial news commentary" about a case before or during trial.

Gag Attempt? Even the watered-down New York resolution was too much for some editors, including Casey Jones, to take. Snapped the New York Daily News in an editorial: "[We will] fight this gag attempt in every . . . way [we] can think up." Said the trade paper Editor & Publisher: "It will be the people who eventually will suffer ..."

Around the U.S., editors agreed that the resolution was a step in the wrong direction. To City Editor Ralph Shawhan of the Los Angeles Mirror, it was the beginning of "a gradual attempt [by] all the little pipsqueaks and politicians to suppress the news generally." Said Executive Editor Basil L. ("Stuffy") Walters of the Chicago Daily News: "Editors are getting pretty sore with lawyers who seem to believe courts belong to them . . ."

Sound from the Neck. To nobody's great surprise, the lone journalistic voice raised in all-out defense of a ban on pretrial reporting came from Columnist Westbrook Pegler, who is having his own court troubles (see below). Said Pegler in his column: "The contention that [such a ban] would violate freedom of the press is only a neck-sound unrelated to the heart of the subject."

Pegler went on to decry the coverage of a current story about wife-swapping parties and murder at Amesbury, Mass. But the New York Journal-American, which carries Pegler's column, seemed oblivious to the neck-sounds emanating from that quarter. Same day, same edition, it ran a Page One streamer on the Amesbury case: 'PASSION' SLAYER REPORTED READY TO INVOLVE LOVER.

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