Opinion ID: 364177
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Criminal Jury Trials

Text: 15 The committee of both the American Bar Association and the Judicial Conference of the United States emphasize that prejudice from lawyers' unrestrained comments is most likely to occur in criminal cases which are heard by a jury. See ABA, Standards Relating to Fair Trial and Free Press 22 (1968); Report of the Committee on the Operation of the Jury System, Free Press-Fair Trial Issue, 45 F.R.D. 391, 392 (1968). Addressing the problem in Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 551, 96 S.Ct. 2791, 2799, 49 L.Ed.2d 683 (1976), the Chief Justice noted: 16 In the overwhelming majority of criminal trials, pretrial publicity presents few unmanageable threats to this important right. But when the case is a sensational one tensions develop between the right of the accused to trial by an impartial jury and the rights guaranteed others by the First Amendment. 17 Of course, even widespread publicity does not taint every sensational trial. See, e. g., Murphy v. Florida, 421 U.S. 794, 95 S.Ct. 2031, 44 L.Ed.2d 589 (1975); Beck v. Washington, 369 U.S. 541, 82 S.Ct. 955, 8 L.Ed.2d 98 (1962); Wansley v. Slayton, 487 F.2d 90 (4th Cir. 1973). The passage of time or other circumstances may dissipate the harm. Nevertheless, the danger to fair trials is illustrated by several decisions of the Supreme Court reversing convictions because of prejudicial publicity stemming in part from lawyers' comments. See, e. g., Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 16 L.Ed.2d 600 (1966); Estes v. Texas, 381 U.S. 532, 85 S.Ct. 1628, 14 L.Ed.2d 543 (1965); Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961). 18 The Honorable Bernard S. Meyer, a member of the American Bar Association's Advisory Committee on Fair Trial and Free Press which drafted the ABA standards, was the principal expert witness supporting the rule in this case. His testimony, based largely on the committee's commentary about the standards, discloses that with respect to criminal cases, the danger of prejudicial publicity creates a substantial threat to fair jury trials. Judge Meyer also explained that the American Bar Association committee relied heavily on Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 363, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 1522, 16 L.Ed.2d 600 (1966), where the Court emphasized the importance of rules and regulations in assuring fair trials: 19 The courts must take such steps by rule and regulation that will protect their processes from prejudicial outside interferences. Neither prosecutors, (nor) counsel for defense . . . should be permitted to frustrate its function. Collaboration between counsel and the press as to information affecting the fairness of a criminal trial is not only subject to regulation, but is highly censurable and worthy of disciplinary measures. 20 The threat of prejudicial publicity is particularly acute in sensational cases when the press reports information gleaned from lawyers about confessions, incriminating evidence, and the accused's background. Moreover, since this information is likely to be uncovered during the investigatory stages of the proceedings before the charges come to the attention of the trial judge, it is difficult for a court to protect the accused by entering orders restricting comments on an Ad hoc basis. 21 Since less intrusive means of assuring the fundamental right to a fair trial are inadequate, we conclude that a properly drawn rule restricting lawyers' comments about pending criminal prosecutions can be justified by the need to protect the right to a fair jury trial. Consequently, we next examine rule 7-107 to determine whether it otherwise conforms with constitutional standards governing the restriction of speech. 22 Read without embellishment, rule 7-107 prohibits lawyers from commenting on certain subjects during the pendency of criminal proceedings. Apparently the ABA Standards, which are the prototype of the rule, were designed to ban such comment absolutely. See Hirschkop v. Virginia State Bar, 421 F.Supp. 1137, 1154-56 (E.D.Va.1976). Counsel for the appellees urge, however, that the rule should be read with a gloss that prohibits only those comments which are reasonably likely to interfere with the administration of justice. Hirschkop argues that a properly drawn rule can bar only those comments that present a clear and present danger to a fair trial. 23 Before the specific recommendations of the Reardon Committee of the American Bar Association and of the Judicial Conference of the United States were formulated and adopted, there were some restrictions upon comments for publication by lawyers and others respecting pending litigation. Old Canon 20 of the Code of Professional Responsibilities 5 addressed the subject insofar as lawyers were concerned. Everyone may have been subject to a contempt citation for speech amounting to an obstruction of justice in state courts. 6 The trouble was that the standards were so general and vague that they were exceedingly difficult to apply and did little to forewarn speakers for publication about what was proscribed and what was permitted. Not unnaturally the Supreme Court in Bridges v. California held that publications could not be held contemptuous of the court unless they posed a clear and present danger or a serious and imminent threat to the administration of justice. To some today, it may seem surprising that Chief Justice Stone and Justices Roberts, Frankfurter, and Byrnes thought that a reasonable likelihood of interference with the fairness and impartiality of judicial proceedings would suffice, but as long as the standards were so general and unspecific, and in the presence of First Amendment rights, punishment should be meted out only to the most flagrant offenders. 24 These rules, with their stringent tests for culpability necessitated by the First Amendment, were inadequate to protect judicial processes from the kind of extraneous influences which impaired their fairness or objectivity or created the appearance of such unfairness. The extensive press reports which deprived the trial of Dr. Sheppard of fairness to such an extent that his conviction was held to be in violation of his due process rights 7 is but illustrative. The seriousness of the problem, however, led the Supreme Court to include the passage, quoted earlier, that courts must take such steps by rule and regulation that will protect their processes from prejudicial outside interference. The Court then focused upon the performance of the lawyers in the litigation. Neither a prosecutor nor counsel for the defense nor others within the court's jurisdiction should be permitted to frustrate its function. Collaboration between counsel and the press as to information affecting the fairness of a criminal trial is not only subject to regulation, but is highly censurable and worthy of disciplinary measures. 25 The Reardon Committee of the American Bar Association picked up the Supreme Court's suggestion 8 and undertook to impose restraints upon statements for publication by lawyers engaged in the preparation for trial and trials of criminal cases. 9 The report of that Committee, after its approval by the American Bar Association and now widely adopted by the states, contains no restraints upon the press. The press may publish any information in its possession as far as these rules are concerned, but the lawyers are directed to try their cases in the court and not in the press. This is a desideratum often repeated, 10 and, generally, it is essential to fairness in the conduct of criminal trials and the protection of rights of due process. 26 Lawyers are officers of the court, subject to reprimand and the imposition of other disciplinary sanctions for the violations of rules to which non-lawyers are not subject. The lawyer is under a high fiduciary duty to fairly represent his client, but he owes substantial duties to the court and to the public as well. If blind loyalty to his client demands that the lawyer knowingly misrepresent facts, his duty to the court and the public requires that he not. The lawyer, as well as the judge, has the duty to the court, to the litigants in the particular case, to litigants in general and to the public to protect the judicial processes from those extraneous influences which impair its fairness. In Estes v. Texas, 381 U.S. 532, 540, 85 S.Ct. 1628, 1632, 14 L.Ed.2d 543 (1965), the Supreme Court referred to the right to a fair trial as the most fundamental of all freedoms. As an officer of the court, it is a lawyer's duty to protect and preserve that right, and he is censurable, as the Supreme Court said in Sheppard v. Maxwell, when he acts to frustrate that right. 27 Lawyers have First Amendment rights of free speech. They are not second class citizens. They are first class citizens with many privileges not enjoyed by other citizens. With privilege, however, goes responsibility, and codes of professional responsibility have traditionally recognized that a lawyer is subject to special disciplinary sanctions when he neglects his responsibility to his clients and to the public. He is equally subject to disciplinary sanctions when he violates his responsibilities to courts, to other litigants and to the public when he invokes extraneous influences to deprive judicial processes of fairness. 28 Thus, the Reardon Committee picked up the Supreme Court's suggestion or direction and focused its attention upon the conduct of lawyers. Instead of the vague and generalized rules of the past, a rule was formulated which, when adopted by the Supreme Court of a state, would amount to a legislative finding that speech for publication about enumerated things by a lawyer engaged in pending or contemplated litigation was so inherently prejudicial that it may be proscribed. Release by a prosecutor to the press of the prior criminal record of a person charged with a crime is illustrative. At the time of release, the prosecutor may not know whether at the time of trial the defendant will wish to remain silent, will not put his credibility in issue and thus have the right that the jury not be informed of his prior record, but he knows that if the defendant at trial does choose not to put his credibility in issue, the jury may not be informed of the prior record. It is the kind of release by a prosecutor that is so inherently prejudicial to the defendant that it ought to be subject to sanctions. This is so, even though the prejudice itself may be wholly or partially avoidable. Transfers of venue, long postponements of trial and the submission of a large array of jurors to searching and extensive voir dire examinations are tools that have been employed in earnest attempts to avoid such prejudice, but the prosecutor is censurable for creating the necessity for the employment of such tools. And use of the tools themselves may impinge upon other substantial rights of a defendant, such as the right to a speedy trial. Moreover, though the court may later conclude that the means employed has so succeeded in avoiding the effects of the prejudice that the defendant may be put to trial without violation of his right to due process, the defendant may be left with such doubt of the impartiality of the jury that he may feel compelled to waive his right to trial by jury. 11 No matter the eventuality, the fairness and integrity of the judicial process has been affected by the speech for publication, and the lawyer ought to be censurable for his highly irresponsible conduct. 29 So much may also be said for the other proscriptions of Rule 7-107(B). The release of the contents of a written confession, for instance, is equally reprehensible, for the prosecutor who releases the contents of such a confession for publication cannot know, until the court rules upon it, whether or not the confession will ever be admitted in evidence and its contents made known to a jury. If the integrity of the judicial process is to be maintained, the results of lie detector and other tests must be protected until the court has had an opportunity to rule upon their admissibility. 30 One may strain to imagine technical violations of these rules which ought not to result in the imposition of sanctions, or even in charges, but they are not easy, and they would be extraordinary. If James Earle Ray should again escape from prison in Tennessee and be recaptured, it may be that no substantial right of his would be adversely affected if the prosecutor announced that he had been serving a sentence for the murder of Martin Luther King. Ray is so widely known as the convicted murderer of King that republication of the fact would be new information to few people. Even if the prosecutor did not inform the press that Ray was serving a sentence for the murder of King, the press would know it and would report the fact of his earlier conviction when it reported his escape and recapture. At the very best, the state at the time of trial would be entitled to prove that he had escaped from a penal institution in which felons were confined. There are few defenses to such charges of escape; a jury trial court be unlikely, 12 and when a jury, at best, would be informed that he had a record as a felon, specification of the offense might have little potential prejudicial effect. 31 If we may imagine situations which would be technical violations of the rules, though innocuous, they are adequately handled by the requirement of a reasonable likelihood that the speech for publication will be prejudicial to a fair trial. The express prohibitions of the rule are not explicitly qualified. Seemingly, the drafters concluded that the potential for prejudice was so inherent and so great in the prohibited speech for publication situations that no qualification was necessary. Since, however, one may imagine some situations which ought not to result in the filing of charges, some qualification is necessary. It is obvious from a reading of the entire rule that the drafters were concerned with speech for publication which had a reasonable likelihood of interference with a fair trial. It does not strain the language of the rule to treat that qualification as implicit in each of the expressed prohibitions. It is made particularly easy in this instance because we are assured that the Supreme Court of Virginia so construes the rule. 32 If some qualification of expressed prohibitions is necessary, however, we find no basis for a conclusion that the Constitution of the United States requires a tighter standard than that implicit in the rules themselves. The only reason for any qualification at all is to take care of the unusual case in which, because of extraordinary circumstances, there is no likelihood of a prejudicial effect. It is simply wrong for a prosecutor, in a sensational murder case, to announce to the public through the press that he has obtained a full confession from one charged with the crime. It would gravely threaten the integrity of the subsequent proceedings if the confession is suppressible and held to be inadmissible in evidence against the defendant. Because of that possibility, the reasonable likelihood test is met, but there is present only a potential for prejudice which may not eventuate if the defendant decides not to contest the admissibility of his confession or, having contested it, the court rules against him. Thus, we are not certain that any clear and present danger or serious and immediate harm test would be met, and we see no reason for injecting into the rules the uncertainties which the imposition of one or both of those standards would occasion. The prosecutor who publicizes the fact of such a confession knows the publication threatens the integrity of the court's processes. He knows that it is wrong for him to do it, and the court should have the power to prohibit his doing it without extended controversy over the immediacy and gravity of the threatened harm in the particular case. 33 Indeed, that is one of the virtues of the rules. They tell the lawyers what they may publicize as well as what they may not. With the reasonable likelihood of interference qualification, the rules seem to be as definite as any set of rules may be. The clarity of their guidance to lawyers is marked. But the injection of any other standard would make the prohibition, which is now clear and definite, to some extent unclear and gray. 13 The reason for the injection of any qualification at all does not require that result as a matter of constitutional doctrine. 34 Our concern, of course, is with speech and the First Amendment guaranty of its freedom, but the guaranty is not unqualified. 35 This is not a prior restraint situation. In the generally accepted sense, a prior restraint is one imposed by a judicial decree, a violation of which is summarily punishable as a contempt. There is no such prejudgment in any such sense in these rules. They inhibit speech within the clearly defined prohibitions, but such inhibitions inhere in every situation within the exceptions to the constitutional guaranty of freedom of speech. Such inhibitions inhere in our laws against defamation and in the principle that one may not falsely shout fire in a crowded theatre. Here sanctions may be imposed upon a lawyer only after charges have been filed against him, he has been given a due process hearing and has been found guilty. Perhaps the inhibition is greater here than in some circumstances because of the relative definitiveness of the prohibitions of these rules, but their clarity in that respect avoids problems of vagueness. That ought not to provoke the imposition of a constitutional standard devised for and applicable to judicial prejudgments. 36 The clear and present danger test, of course, is appropriate in other situations than judicially imposed prior restraints. Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Brandeis were of the opinion that such a test was a constitutional requisite in a prosecution under California's Criminal Syndicalism Statute. 14 They were properly concerned that a substantial distinction be drawn between the theoretical teaching of the virtues of proletarian revolution contemplated for the far distant future and conspiracies and associations for the accomplishment of immediate criminal activity. They concurred in the judgment affirming the conviction, however, because of the presence of evidence that an object of the conspiracy was the commission of present serious crimes and that the conspiracy would be furthered by the activity of the society to which the defendant belonged. Earlier it had been held that such a test was appropriate in a prosecution under the Federal Espionage Act of 1917 of the secretary of the Socialist Party who was circularizing men called for military service for the purpose of influencing them to obstruct the draft. 15 The test was held to have been met there. Finally, such a test has been held appropriate when a court attempts to punish a speaker under the court's general contempt power. 16 With the exception of Bridges' telegram to the Secretary of Labor, those cases involved editorials and articles in newspapers critical of the court. In Pennekamp v. Florida and Craig v. Harney the criticism was of past conduct and rulings by the court; an area in which the press enjoys a large, if not a full, measure of freedom. In Bridges the publications do relate to judicial proceedings not yet ended, but such things as the rather mild expression of the opinion of the editor that the criminal defendants should not be granted probation and that the community needed the example of their confinement as felons should not result in the summary imposition of penal sanctions unless some exacting standard is met. The freedom of the press to report judicial proceedings and to criticize a judge when what the judge does seems wrong to the press ought to be uncurbed, and expressions of opinion about what it should do when the judge has not yet acted ought not to be regarded as a contemptuous interference with judicial proceedings when there is no clear and present threat to the integrity of the judicial processes. 37 In those cases, the contempt power of the court had been invoked and punishment imposed on the basis of vague and general standards. Because of their generality and vagueness, members of the press should not be punished unless their offense be flagrant and done under such circumstances that they should have realized that they were threatening the integrity of the judicial process. Our situation here is wholly incomparable, for we deal only with speech for publication by lawyers and with rules which are quite explicit in informing them what they may and may not say for publication. No heavier or stiffer standard than the reasonable likelihood test is needed to protect them from disciplinary sanctions for speech for publication without adequate notice of the consequences. 38 In Sheppard v. Maxwell the Supreme Court stated that where there is a reasonable likelihood the prejudicial news would prevent a fair trial, the judge should take remedial action or grant a new trial. The statement was made with respect to the action the court should take to retrieve the situation after the harm is done, but the Court, in Sheppard v. Maxwell, also stated that the court must adopt rules and regulations which avoid the harm in the first place. If remedial action is required on the basis of a reasonable likelihood test, and it is, the rules for the avoidance of the harm must be considered under the same test. Implicitly if not explicitly, the Supreme Court must have approved the reasonable likelihood standard for the application of the preventive rules. The rules would be meaningless if sanctions could be imposed only when the lawyer's published speech creates unremediable prejudice. They have meaning and appropriateness when so applied as to prevent the lawyer's creation of a reasonable likelihood for prejudice by a violation of one of the expressed prohibitions. We know of no good reason why the court may not forbid the lawyer from intentionally creating grave due process problems, and we are unaware of any constitutional requirement that forbids the court from protecting the integrity of its processes to that extent. 39 Rules governing the conduct of lawyers cannot provide a complete answer to the problem of pre-trial publicity with adverse impact upon the judicial process. Police officers may speak, and sometimes do, though one gets the impression that their exercise of restraint is on the increase. Members of the press may have other sources of information. But if police officers may create problems requiring extraordinary measures to avoid prejudice, that fact supplies no reason for thinking that lawyers may do it. Lawyers are officers of the court and, as discussed above, they have very special responsibilities for lending support to maintenance of the integrity of the judicial system. The mores of the marketplace are not the measures for the conduct of lawyers and judges, and lawyers may be held to higher standards than policemen. 40 Some concern has been expressed that the rule may preclude a lawyer for a defendant from stating for publication that in his opinion the statute under which the defendant is charged is unconstitutional and that he plans to defend on that ground. We do not so read the rule. Rule 7-107(C)(11) specifically says that a defense lawyer may state for publication that his client denies the charges. This would seem to include denials on legal, as well as, factual grounds. Moreover, the whole thrust of the rule is to protect the integrity of the factfinding process. The specific prohibitions are strictly directed to that end, and none of them seem capable of a construction which would preclude lawyers from publicly discussing the constitutionality or the fairness of the statute upon which pending criminal charges were founded. 41 As noted at the end of the introductory section, a majority of a panel of the Seventh Circuit came to a different conclusion. Chicago Council of Lawyers v. Bauer, 522 F.2d 242. There, under consideration was a district court rule which was construed by the panel to foreclose such things as a statement by the defense lawyer questioning the constitutionality of the statute under which his client was charged. 17 We find no such restraint in Virginia's rule. To the extent that it was held in Bauer, however, that the reasonable likelihood test is constitutionally impermissible in a rule such as Virginia's we simply disagree. For the reasons we have given, the reasonable likelihood test divides the innocuous from the culpable, adds clarity to the rule and makes it more definite in application. We find no requirement in the Constitution of anything else.