Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/338/912.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 23:15:41+00:00

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'A little girl in one of the parks of Washington, D.C., had been murdered under horrible and tragic circumstances. Some ten days later, little Marsha Brill was dragged from her bicycle on one of the public thoroughfares of Baltimore City while in the company, or at least, in the vicinity of two of her playmates, and there stabbed to death. The impact of those two similar crimes upon the public mind was terrific. The people throughout the City were outraged. Not only were they outraged but they were terrified. Certainly, and parent of a young child [338 U.S. 912 , 913] must have felt a dread at the thought that his or her child might be killed while out upon the thoroughfares of Baltimore City. We think we are justified in drawing the conclusion that there was widespread and compelling public interest in the Brill murder. We think we are justified in assuming that many, many ears were on that evening in Baltimore, glued to their radios. And what happened? Mr. Connelly goes on the air and announces 'Stand by for a sensation.' Now, gentlemen, it is a fair and safe bet that whatever the Hooperrating of his station may be, no listener tuned to his station was going to turn his radio off when he heard that announcement. Mr. Connelly then proceeded to explain that James had been apprehended and that he had been charged with the Brill murder. That was all right. Nobody could quarrel with that, but then he goes on to say that James had confessed to this dastardly crime, that he has a long criminal record, that he went out to the scene with the officers and there re- enacted the crime, and further, dug up from somewhere down in the leaves the knife that he had used to murder the little girl. Now, gentlemen, the Court has no difficulty in concluding that the broadcast was devastating. Anybody who heard it would never forget it. The question then before us is: Did that broadcast and others which were less damaging by the other stations, have a clear and present effect upon the administration of justice? The Court is bound to say that we do not believe that those broadcasts had any appreciable effect to say nothing of constituting a clear and present danger, upon the decision of the Judges who tried the case. At the moment we do not recall just who those Judges were, but Judges are supposed to be made of sterner stuff than to be influenced by irresponsible statements regarding pend- [338 U.S. 912 , 914] ing cases. They are trained to put aside inadmissible evidence and while we, of course, recognize our limitations, I think that most Judges, at least, are fairly able to disregard improper influences which may have reached their attention.
'Now, what about the jury? In the first place, what is this jury that we are talking about? They are twelve men, or in most jurisdictions now, as in Maryland, men and women who are picked from all walks of life and who have the responsibility of hearing cases and determining, in this State at least, not only the facts but the law in the case. It may be unfortunate, perhaps, but certainly the fact is that the jury's verdict is final in most cases. There is the limited protection of the accused to apply for a new trial, but the Court of Appeals can not determine-review and determine-the propriety of the verdict reached by the jury either on the law or on the facts. Now this jury system is intended, and I think it works out that way, to bring to the trial of a case as one element, the public opinion in the community. It is true that the jury is sworn to decide the case upon the evidence which it hears from the witness stand, but I think that no experienced lawyer would contend that a jury is not expected to bring to the consideration of its verdict the temperament of the community in which the members of the jury live. The jury is called upon to decide the facts as it hears them from the witness stand in the light of its past experience and, if you please, its past knowledge. True, attempts are made to get jurors who have not been touched with any previous influence in the case, but the safeguards that are provided for the realization of that ideal are all too limited.
'The Court knows no graver responsibility that devolves upon Counsel for the Defense in a serious [338 U.S. 912 , 915] criminal case than the responsibility of advising his client whether to elect a jury trial or a court trial. Counsel must be able to sense public opinion, and he must evaluate the possible effect upon the jurors' minds of those things which they know or think they know. Doubtless, all of us have seen cases tried in which we felt that the Counsel made errors of judgment as to how the particular cases ought to be tried. They are, however, doing the best that they can and, as I have indicated, theirs is a grave responsibility, because it is irrevocable. When a jury determines a case that terminates the case and if Counsel may have made an unfortunate choice then his client suffers the consequences.
'Now, the Court can not help but feel that the broadcast referred to in these cases must have had an indelible effect upon the public mind and that that effect was one that was bound to follow the members of the panel into the jury room. The Court hardly needs evidence in this factual situation to reach the conclusion that James' free choice to either a court trial on the one hand and a jury trial on the other, has been clearly and definitely interfered with. However, we do have the testimony of his Counsel, Mr. Murphy, (and we are bound to say that his testimony seemed to be reasonable and persuasive) who told the Court that he felt that he had no choice. He simply could not afford to subject his client to the risk of trying his case before a jury in a community where this extraneous and improper matter had been broadcast. He did, in fact, elect a court trial, but he did not have any alternative, according to his Counsel, and the Court is bound to say that we agree with his Counsel. The suggestion has been made here that the right to a jury trial could have been protected by the right of removal and in this case [338 U.S. 912 , 916] he did have the right, the Constitutional right, of removal. We assume that the Court would have sent the case to some other Circuit for trial but Mr. Murphy says that there were some Counties in the State where he did not want to send his client for a jury trial. Not only that, but many parts of the State were blanketed by the same broadcast information that was available to the people of the City of Baltimore. Counsel siad that at least one of the stations had a radius of seven hundred and fifty miles.
The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed these convictions. 67 A.2d 497. It did so by sustaining 'the chief contention of the appellants, that the power to punish for contempt is limited by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution, and that the facts in the case at bar cannot support the judgments, [338 U.S. 912 , 917] in the light of those amendments, as authoritatively construed by the Supreme Court.' 67 A.2d at page 507. The decision of the Court of Appeals was thus summarized in the dissenting opinion of Judge Markell: 'This court holds that under the decisions of the Supreme Court (Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252 , 159 A.L.R. 1346; Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U.S. 331 , and Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367 ) the judgments below violate the freedom of speech and of the press under the Fourteenth Amendment. If this is the correct interpretation of these decisions, of course they are conclusive.' 67 A.2d at page 518.
This Court now declines to review the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals. The sole significance of such denial of a petition for writ of certiorari need not be elucidated to those versed in the Court's procedures. It simply means that fewer than four members of the Court deemed it desirable to review a decision of the lower court as a matter 'of sound judicial discretion'. Rule 38, paragraph 5, Rules of the Supreme Court, 28 U.S.C.A. A variety of considerations underlie denials of the writ, and as to the same petition different reasons may lead different Justices to the same result. This is especially true of petitions for review on writ of certiorari to a State court. Narrowly technical reasons [338 U.S. 912 , 918] may lead to denials. Review may be sought too late; the judgment of the lower court may not be final; it may not be the judgment of a State court of last resort; the decision may be supportable as a matter of State law, not subject to review by this Court, even though the State court also passed on issues of federal law. A decision may satisfy all these technical requirements and yet may commend itself for review to fewer than four members of the Court. Pertinent considerations of judicial policy here come into play. A case may raise an important question but the record may be cloudy. It may be desirable to have different aspects of an issue further illumined by the lower courts. Wise adjudication has its own time for ripening.
Since there are these conflicting and, to the uninformed, even confusing reasons for denying petitions for certiorari, it has been suggested from time to time that the Court indicate its reasons for denial. Practical considerations preclude. In order that the Court may be enabled to discharge its indispensable duties, Congress has placed the control of the Court's business, in effect, within the Court's discretion. During the last three terms the Court disposed of 260, 217, 224 cases, respectively, on their merits. For the same three terms the Court denied, respectively, 1,260, 1,105, 1,189 petitions calling for discretionary review. If the Court is to do its work it would not be feasible to give reasons, however brief, for refusing to take these cases. The time that would be required is prohibitive, apart from the fact as already indicated that different reasons not infrequently move different members of the Court in concluding that a particular case at a particular time makes review undersirable. It becomes relevant here to note that failure to record a dissent from a denial of a petition for writ of certiorari in nowise implies that only the member of the Court who notes his dissent thought the petition should be granted. [338 U.S. 912 , 919] Inasmuch, therefore, as all that a denial of a petition for a writ of certiorari means is that fewer than four members of the Court thought it should be granted, this Court has rigorously insisted that such a denial carries with it no implication whatever regarding the Court's views on the merits of a case which it has declined to review. The Court has said this again and again; again and again the admonition has to be repeated.
It becomes necessary to say that denial of this petition carries no support whatever for concluding that either the majority or the dissent in the court below correctly interpreted the scope of our decisions in Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252 , 159 A.L.R. 1346; Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U.S. 331 ; and Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367 . It does not carry any implication that either, or neither, opinion below correctly applied those decisions to the facts in the case at bar.
The issues considered by the Court of Appeals bear on some of the basic problems of a democratic society. Freedom of the press, properly conceived, is basic to our constitutional system. Safeguards for the fair administration of criminal justice are enshrined in our Bill of Rights. Respect for both of these indispensable elements of our constitutional system presents some of the most difficult and delicate problems for adjudication when they are before the Court for adjudication. It has taken centuries of struggle to evolve our system for bringing the [338 U.S. 912 , 920] guilty to book, protecting the innocent, and maintaining the interests of society consonant with our democratic professions. One of the demands of a democratic society is that the public should know what goes on in courts by being told by the press what happens there, to the end that the public may judge whether our system of criminal justice is fair and right. On the other hand our society has set apart court and jury as the tribunal for determining guilt or innocence on the basis of evidence adduced in court, so far as it is humanly possible. It would be the grossest perversion of all that Mr. Justice Holmes represents to suggest that it is also true of the thought behind a criminal charge '... that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market'. Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 , 22. Proceedings for the determination of guilt or innocence in open court before a jury are not in competition with any other means for establishing the charge.
I have set forth in an appendix the course of recent English decisions dealing with situations in which publications were claimed to have injuriously affected the prosecutions for crime awaiting jury determination. (As to freedom of press in England, see Report of the Royal Commission on the Press, Cmd. No. 7700, and the debate thereon in the House of Commons, July 28, 1949. 467 H.C. Deb. (5th ser.) 2683-2794.) Reference is made to this body of experience merely for the purpose of indicating the kind of questions that would have to be faced were we called upon to pass on the limits that the Fourteenth Amendment places upon the power of States to safeguard the fair administration of criminal justice by jury trial from mutilation or distortion by extraneous influences. These are issues that this Court has not yet adjudicated. It is not to be supposed that by implication it means to adjudicate them by refusing to adjudicate. [338 U.S. 912 , 921] Appendix to Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J.
The pertinent part of the judgment of the court, delivered through Darling, J., was thus reported: 'In the present case, after the man was in custody the newspaper commented upon the case as to whether he had committed the crime, not to assist in unravelling the case. It was merely an attempt to minister to the idle curiosity of people as to what was passing within the prison before the trial took place. A news agent procured various telegrams from Quebec, and, when he did not get enough, he telegraphed for 1,000 words more. [338 U.S. 912 , 923] The Daily Chronicle published a telegram from Quebec stating:-'It is generally considered here that the formal official denials that Crippen has made a confession hinge upon a distinction between the words 'admission' and 'confession." Whether it was an admission or confession the effect on the prisoner would be the same. The telegram went on:-'It is quite possible that what Crippen said may not be regarded officially as a confession, especially as he declared that he was not a 'murderer,' but that the prisoner made a statement to Inspector Dew last Monday I have reason to feel certain. I have confidence in the authority on which I cabled you the information sent last night, and I am assured to-day from the same source that Crippen admitted in the presence of witnesses that he had killed his wife, but denied that the act was murder,' and finishing up with stating that his wife died from an operation. Anything more calculated to prejudice a defense could not be imagined. The jurors were drawn from the county of Middlesex, where this paper was widely circulated.
'It was not possible for that Court, nor had it any inclination, to suggest to the responsible editors of those newspapers what [338 U.S. 912 , 926] were the lines on which they ought to proceed. Any such task as that was entirely beyond the province of that or any other tribunal. Those who had to judge by the results could see what a perilous enterprise this kind of publication was. It was not possible even for the most ingenious mind to anticipate with certainty what were to be the real issues, to say nothing of the more difficult question what was to be the relative importance of different issues in a trial which was about to take place. It might be that a date, a place, or a letter, or some other one thing which, considered in itself, looked trivial, might prove in the end to be a matter of paramount importance. It was impossible to foresee what was important (p. 835).
8. Rex v. Editor, Printers and Publishers of the Daily Herald, 75 Sol. J. 119 (K.B. 1931) (Lord Hewart, C.J., Avory and MacKinnon, JJ.). Rule nisi for contempt for publishing a poster, which in fact related to another case, containing the words 'Another Blazing Car Murder' at a time when an accused stood committed for trial on [338 U.S. 912 , 927] the charge of murder of a man in a motor car found burned up. As is the practice in all these cases the respondents tendered full apology to the court. In delivering the judgment, Lord Hewart, C.J., stated that the poster words might suggest that the accused had committed murder which was the issue the jury had to decide. The rule was made absolute, but only costs were assessed.
10. Rex. v. Hutchison, (1936) 2 All Eng. 1514 (K.B.) (Swift, Humphreys and Goddard, JJ.). Rules nisi for contempt of court for showing a news film of the arrest of a man, subsequently charged with unlawful possession of firearms, with the caption: 'Attempt on the [338 U.S. 912 , 928] King's Life.' The arrest had been made after a revolver fell close to the King's horse during a procession in which the King was riding, and it was widely feared that an attempt had been made on the King's life. Swift, J., delivered the judgment of the court making the rules absolute on the ground that the caption was likely to bring about 'derangement in the carriage of justice' (p. 1515). Because of their apologies only costs were assessed against some respondents, but another was fined 50 and costs 'to mark the court's disapproval of their conduct' (p. 1515).
'A Divisional Court of the King's Bench-the Lord Chief Justice ( Goddard), Mr. Justice Humphreys, and Mr. Justice Birkett-yesterday, on the two motions for writs of attachment for contempt of Court made on behalf of John George Haigh (who is at present in custody on a charge of murdering Mrs. Olive Durand-Deacon) against Mr. Silvester Bolam, the editor of the Daily Mirror, and Daily Mirror Newspapers, Limited, the Court ordered that Mr. Bolam should be committed to prison for three calendar months, and that the company should pay a fine of 10,000 and the costs of the proceedings.
'The Lord Chief Justice, delivering the judgment of the Court, said that Sir Walter Monckton had moved for a writ of attachment against Mr. Silvester Bolam, the editor of the Daily Mirror, for contempt of Court. In view of the gravity of the case the Court directed that the proprietors of the newspaper, a limited company, Daily Mirror Newspapers, Limited, should also be summoned before the Court to answer for the contempt committed by the publication in the newspaper of the matters complained of. It appeared that a man named Haigh had been arrested and charged with murder. He had been brought before the examining justices at Horsham and the case had not yet been opened. No more was known than that he had been charged with murder. [338 U.S. 912 , 931] 'On March 4 three issues of the Daily Mirror were published-three separate editions. Those editions contained articles, photographs, and headlines in the largest possible type, of a character which the Court could only describe as a disgrace to English journalism as violating every principle of justice and fair play which it had been the pride of this country to extend to the worst of criminals.
'After it had come to the knowledge of the Commissioner of Police that the Daily Mirror or some other paper might be likely to publish some details of the case, in the course of the evening a warning was sent from the office of the Commissioner of Police to this newspaper. That that had any real effect on this newspaper, in spite of what had been said in the affidavit, it was difficult to believe. It was true that there was some, but very little, alteration in the last edition. That edition was itself a gross contempt, not perhaps quite so bad as the other two which had been issued. The fact that the police had given a warning did not affect the question one way or the other. It [338 U.S. 912 , 932] was an offense whether notice had been given or not. It might aggravate the case that more attention was not paid to the warning.
[ Footnote 2 ] This proceeding was civil, but it is included herein for completeness.

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