Court Opinion

ID: 9672954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:03:13.998917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:27:01.130483
License: Public Domain

T. G-. Kavanagh, J.,
(dissenting). “Suspect Said He Planned to Kill Area Boy”
“There’s no use kidding you. I went over to kill him”
At trial, Alan Ross Pearson claimed that he had acted in self-defense. Yet the prejudicial statements, along with references to a signed confession, found their way into the Pontiac Press before and during the proceedings. The majority finds no lirobable prejudice. I disagree.
We must assay the publication,'in the community in which the trial was held, of statements which the trial court ruled could not be offered as evidence. “[D]ue process of law in this case required a trial before a jury drawn from a community of people who had not seen or heard” such inadmissible evidence. Rideau v. Louisiana (1963), 373 US 723 (83 S Ct 1417, 10 L Ed 2d 663). The potential for community bias, the probability of prejudice inherent in such a tainted broadcasting has encouraged the United States Supreme Court, in like cases, to lift from defendant the burden of proving actual prejudice of jurors and to place the responsibility of insuring a fair trial where it properly belongs— on every officer of the court. See Estes v. Texas (1965), 381 US 532 (85 S Ct 1628, 14 L Ed 2d 543); *383Sheppard v. Maxwell (1966), 384 US 333 (86 S Ct 1507, 16 L Ed 2d 600).
We have no assured means of ascertaining the degree of community bias resulting from these publications or the influence such prejudice had on this jury. We do know that three jurors subscribed to the Pontiac Press which provided coverage of the incident over an eight month period. The exhibits clearly establish that the community had feelings.1 We know that the statements were inadmissible at trial.
A reading of Rideau, Estes, and Sheppard, supra, convinces us that the probability of prejudice from outside interference requires employment of procedural safeguards to prevent prejudicial publicity where possible2 or to escape its effects once felt.
“Due process requires that the accused receive a trial by an impartial jury free from outside influence. Given the pervasiveness of modern communications and the difficulty of effacing prejudicial publicity from the minds of the jurors, the trial courts must take strong measures to insure that the balance is never weighed against the accused. And appellate tribunals have the duty to make an independent evaluation of the circumstances. * * *
“The courts must take steps by rule and regulation that will protect their processes from prejudicial outside interferences. Neither prosecutors, counsel for defense, the accused, witnesses, court staff nor enforcement officers coming under the jurisdiction of the court should be permitted to frustrate its function.” Sheppard, supra, pp 362, 363.
*384That which was wholly inadmissible before twelve jurors was twice told to an entire community. Warnings, suggestions, and admonitions to the jury to avoid such outside influences, with no subsequent re-examination to ascertain the effect, if any, of current reporting, are insufficient guarantee standing alone that defendant has not been denied due process of law. The motion for new trial should have been granted.

 Pontiae Press, August 13, 1965. Voiee of the People (Letters to editor) :
“A doctor’s family in Waterford grieves because their son was stabbed to death. Is their grief any less because the parents of the lad who did it are upset?”

 See 39 Journal of Criminal Law 234, Criminology and Police Science: The Aftermath of Sheppard.