Trial by media?

September 12, 2006 10:51 AM

Have there been any situations (either real or in fiction) where the media interfered enough with a criminal investigation that it actually changed the outcome of the investigation?

I am curious about the concept of Trial by Media, also about situations in which the suspect got away or was acquitted due directly to the influence of either the media itself, or the media's control of public opinion.

I'm also interested in stories or situations wherein a suspect might be caught by a unique use of the media (for example, a situation where the news reports falsely about some incorrect leads, allowing the fugitive to think he's safe and therefore get "sloppy.")

I'm looking for all kinds of stories/ideas about the influence of media on investigations (besides the obvious idea of having a fugitive's face plastered all over the web/TV, leading to his recognition and arrest.) The stories don't have to actually have happened, as long as they COULD happen. Real articles or cases you can point me to are appreciated as well.

Any articles, stories, situations, legal issues, or ideas involving the media doing the police's job for them, (or conversely, screwing it up?)

posted by MattS to Media & Arts (19 answers total)

I'd say the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby qualifies. The enormous publicity around the case led to all kinds of people claiming they knew things, and even had some people pretending to be in contact with the kidnappers.
posted by agropyron at 10:56 AM on September 12, 2006

I should think the OJ Trial might be one of the first on your list- in a vacuum, free from media feedback loops, does that case turn out entirely differently?

But in terms of the media either uncovering evidence that changed the outcome of a case, and/or causing suspects to "get sloppy" as you put it, or the inverse to be more cautious... well, maybe the Jon-Benet Ramsey case?

And time may show the ultimate outcome of the West Memphis 3 case to be changed by virtue of media attention and the documentary film(s), so that might be one to consider.
posted by hincandenza at 11:04 AM on September 12, 2006

When Ted Kaczynski's manifesto was published in the NY Times and Washington Post, his brother recognized the writing style and contacted the FBI. He was arrested shortly thereafter.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:05 AM on September 12, 2006

One problem with the media in general is their poisoning of the potential jury pool, thereby preventing a fair and impartial jury should a case go to trial.

This is why publication bans were invented.
posted by ceribus peribus at 11:07 AM on September 12, 2006

After Mary Phagan's murder, competition between the Atlanta Constitution and a rival Hearst paper, the Georgian to report the progress of the case inflamed the populace, but the trial went ahead. Tom Watson's paper, the Jeffersonian, urged the mob on, in anti-Semitic terms. After Frank's conviction and the commutation of his sentence, a mob lynched him. Does that qualify?
posted by orthogonality at 11:08 AM on September 12, 2006

Not quite about the outcome of the case, but I saw a presentation made by a former Cambridgeshire police press officer who said that it's generally recognised by UK forces that you have up to a week in murder/high-profile cases to catch the offender before the press turn against you. His particular experience was the Soham murders, but he presented a range of other cases too that showed initial media support for the "brave boys in blue" that then turned into criticism of the police once the week deadline had been passed.

On screwing it up, there's contempt of court - a good UK example is the Sunday Mirror publishing an article that led to the collapse of a trial involving footballer Lee Bowyer. Cost to the taxpayer was £10 million.
posted by greycap at 11:20 AM on September 12, 2006

Are you talking about the media affecting trials or investigations. Because it's hugely different. A jury pool can be poisoned by media coverage, and, as in the OJ trial, the lawyers can act like asses when they have a lot of cameras on them, potentially affecting the verdict.

The effect of the press on open police investigations is a huge topic. The Son of Sam wrote letters to NYC columnist Jimmy Breslin, for instance, though it didn't really help lead to his capture. You could argue the media attempts to help catch the Betway Sniper actually extended the duo's rampage because so many mistaken witnesses were quoted. (White van anyone?)

Journalism professor David Protess in Chicago has helped free at least four innocent men from Death Row by siccing his journalism students on their cases.

A hit man confessed to a reporter in Philly that he was hired to kill a rabbi's wife. The reporter, Nancy Phillips, convinced the killer to talk to a DA.

There's lots more....
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:27 AM on September 12, 2006

Upon the release of Errol Morris's documentary The Thin Blue Line, the case that film was based on was reopened and the film itself was entered into evidence in the case. The scholarly article "Errol Morris' Construction of Innocence in The Thin Blue Line," by Renee Curry, published in the Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Vol 49 No 2 (available through the JSTOR archive, if you have access to that) seems to treat the subject, though I must confess I've only skimmed the article and not read it through to see how relevant it is to your question.
posted by jrb223 at 11:37 AM on September 12, 2006

Are you counting celebrity (which is a product of media)? It's pretty hard for a famous person to get convicted, from Michael Jackson to OJ to Fatty Arbuckle (who I think was probably innocent, anyway). Just a little celebrity seems to be enough to give you a get out off jail free card (see Robert Blake or even John Holmes). It seems like if you were in the media before the crime, you'll walk.
posted by Bookhouse at 11:55 AM on September 12, 2006

jrb223 beat me to suggesting the Thin Blue Line while I was wracking my brain trying to remember Steven Truscott's name. Truscott was convicted of murdering Lynne Harper at the age of 14 (and this case is what spurred Canada into abolishing the death penalty). The CBC's Fifth Estate did a documentary about the case a few years back which eventually led to a judicial review of the case.
posted by squeak at 12:07 PM on September 12, 2006

For your fiction angle: Bonfire of the Vanities
posted by thanotopsis at 12:17 PM on September 12, 2006

A few years ago, reporter Bill Smith of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote some stories about a suspected serial killer of prostitutes in the area. He got a letter from a guy claiming to be the killer and it contained a computer-generated map of where police could find the next body. Smith contacted police, and sure 'nuff, the found a body. They then tracked down the source of the map and found it was made in the basement of a certain house in a suburban St. Louis neighborhood, and that house belonged to a guy named Maury Travis. They found all kinds of creepy stuff in the house, including a videotape of himself killing a prostitute. He ended up hanging himself in the county jail not too long after he was caught.
posted by printchick at 2:47 PM on September 12, 2006

Absence of Malice also fits in the fiction category.
posted by forrest at 2:56 PM on September 12, 2006

printchick, did they ever say why that killer sent a reporter a map of the bodies' locations and not the police? Was the killer just some kind of serial attention-seeker, or was there any specific reason for it?
posted by np312 at 2:56 PM on September 12, 2006

In Cold Blood. At least the movie version seems to intimate that Capote could have stopped the execution, but didn't because it made for a better book

reg
posted by legotech at 3:06 PM on September 12, 2006

Also fiction: Vernon God Little
posted by Roger Dodger at 4:39 PM on September 12, 2006

It's debatable, but CNN's Nancy Grace has recently been blamed for a young mother's suicide less than 24h after being harshly interviewed by NG.

Melinda Duckett's 2yo son disappeared 2 weeks ago, the boy has not yet been found, and now his mother, a prime witness and 'person of interest' is not alive to answer any questions.
posted by LadyBonita at 5:50 PM on September 12, 2006

As someone mentioned above, a Sunday newspaper in the UK published an interview with a victim's father calling for a guilty verdict in a case where two Premiership footballers (Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate) were accused of racially motivated assault. The trial collapsed the next day, and the newspaper had sat on the story until the day before the verdict in an effort to increase circulation. I think it was the News of the World, may have been the Sunday Mirror.

Another high profile case in the UK was the media hysteria over paedophiles (or pederasts as they pedantically should be known as). The News of the World started to publish the names and photographs of alleged sex offenders (many not convicted) in direct contravention of court rules, defying the court to hold them in contempt of court. Think it all happened in 2001.
posted by csg77 at 1:00 AM on September 13, 2006

np312--the reporter had written a story about the unsolved murders, and the killer was responding to those. The letter said something to him like "nice sob story" and then provided the map. Who knows--why the heck did he videotape himself strangling a woman?
posted by printchick at 8:21 AM on September 14, 2006