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Celebrity trials proliferate 50 years after Sheppard case |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Tuesday, 22 June 2004 |
CLEVELAND Fifty years after the murder of an attractive young woman in a wealthy suburb sent the media into a frenzy, a new generation of celebrity trials has emerged.
The grisly bludgeoning of Marilyn Sheppard in the bedroom of her lakeside home on July 4, 1954, shook the public's security. The trial of her husband, Dr. Sam Sheppard, captivated its morbid curiosity.
The story quickly generated international headlines. In Cleveland, newspapers hounded police to charge Sheppard, published the names and addresses of prospective jurors and interviewed witnesses before they testified.
Today, in an age of 24-hour cable and Internet news, the celebrity trial has seemingly become commonplace. The cases of Scott Peterson, Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant and O.J. Simpson have grabbed huge shares of media coverage and ratings.
"Success begets success in television," said media consultant Jack MacKenzie, a senior vice president at Frank N. Magid Associates. "Companies have had success reporting on celebrity trials endlessly."
High-profile trials are great running stories that provide daily drama and ultimately a winner and a loser.
"These trials are combination soap opera/sporting event," MacKenzie said.
Some criminal justice experts, like Lewis Katz, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, say the publicity gets in the way of a fair trial. Katz blames cable news in particular with polluting potential jurors.
"They just chew on these cases incessantly, offering opinions not based on evidence," he said.
In the Sheppard case, newspaper reporters overran the courtroom right under the judge's nose. Cleveland newspapers proclaimed Sheppard's guilt, and the doctor was convicted of murder.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the verdict after Sheppard spent a decade in prison, ruling that the trial judge failed to shield jurors from negative media reports. The high court noted a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial.
Theories are still debated and books written about who committed the crime, considered an inspiration for the television series "The Fugitive."
About 40 years apart, both the Sheppard and Simpson cases were dubbed "The Trial of the Century."
What the Sheppard case did to sell newspapers, the Simpson case did for cable news. Afternoon television coverage of the Simpson trial pre-empted soap operas for weeks. The trial put Court TV on the map and led to other court shows.
Excessive coverage gives the public a poor impression of the justice system and hurts the parties involved, said Larry Pozner, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
"The act of observing the process changes the process," he said. "Media coverage doesn't just report the case, it alters the case."
Aly Colon, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute a nonprofit, independent school for journalists, said there are more news media outlets looking for stories to tell, which contributes to the increase in cases in the public eye.
He notes that there always has been plenty of celebrity journalism, but there's more now because the definition of who is a celebrity has grown, aided by the instantaneous nature of media.
"Now you can have a crime or an event involving even a minor celebrity become worldwide news because of the opportunity for the transmission of information that didn't exist before," Colon said.
He said media outlets have to take a responsible approach so the public understands what's going on without overdoing it.
"I think the repetitive nature of our coverage can make something more than what it is or make people believe it's more important than it actually is," he said.
The anniversary of the Sheppard slaying comes in the midst of the trial of Peterson, who, like Sheppard, has become a nationally recognized figure after being charged with murdering his pregnant wife.
Their cases share some themes that seem to push a story into the spotlight.
Pozner notes that a good mystery involving photogenic characters, violence and sex are common elements. Multiple murder and domestic strife are other ingredients, MacKenzie said.
Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley doesn't think the media or the public necessarily initiate the interest. He said sometimes the parties or attorneys in a trial contribute to the phenomenon by doing countless interviews.
"You can't say it's the media's fault that this happens. It just happens," Cooley said.
Sam Reese Sheppard, son of Dr. Sam and Marilyn Sheppard, lives in Oakland, Calif., about 20 miles from the site of Peterson's trial in Redwood City. He said he sees similarities between his father's case and the Peterson case, and the idea of media profiting from such tragedies upsets him.
"I am a longtime casualty of this stuff," he said. "These are turned into commodities."
Sheppard said that in both cases the media attention has influenced law enforcement to pick a suspect and stick with him regardless of the evidence.
Dr. Sam Sheppard always denied killing his wife. He said he awoke to her cries and grappled with a bushy-haired intruder, who knocked him unconscious. The doctor was acquitted in a 1966 retrial and died four years later from liver failure at age 46.
Their son believes the real killer was a window washer who worked for the family. He died in 1998 while serving a life sentence for another murder.
Sheppard lost a wrongful imprisonment case in 2000 against the state.
He said he considered a cross-country walk to mark the 50th anniversary of his mother's murder but decided instead to quietly remember his parents.
"I'm not going to kill myself trying to prove it," he said of his father's innocence. "I'm not going to let this poison me."
Sam Reese Sheppard's site
http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=1960952 |
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