Relationship Between Pretrial Publicity and Trial Outcomes

Abstract

Research suggests that pretrial publicity influences trials. Past research has relied heavily on experimental methods. Several commentators have questioned the ecological validity of the studies, and hence the value of the findings. The present study, one of the first to examine actual trials, focused on all federal murder trials over a 3-year period. The results suggested that (a) greater probability of conviction was associated with low rather than high levels of publicity; (b) defendants fared better under moderate rather than no publicity levels; and (c) for defendants who were convicted, any degree of pretrial publicity was associated with longer sentences. In general, the results obtained from studying actual trials differed in important ways from the results obtained in laboratory research.

Communication Law and Policy: The State of Research and Theory

“…Bruschke and Loges (2004) produced a book rejecting research claiming that pretrial publicity damages trial participants. In field surveys of their own, they found that when prejudicial pretrial publicity was rife in 134 federal murder trials (Bruschke & Loges, 1999) and in federal murder and robbery trials in three cities (Bruschke & Loges, 2001), verdicts showed no increased tendencies in the direction of the prejudicial publicity. In their studies, however, it was not possible for the researchers to document that the individuals who were exposed to the pretrial publicity also were the same people who were selected as jurors (although the researchers made efforts to show that the pools of subjects in each domain were comparable in many ways).…”

“…Nevertheless, not all studies have consistently found significant effects for pretrial publicity (Bruschke & Loges, 1999Riedel, 1993;Shaffer, 1986), though occasionally the failure to find effects was simply the result of ceiling effects (Finkelstein, 1995). That is, in some studies, individual jurors were already so negatively disposed toward the defendant that additional shifts of sentiment against the defendant could not be registered.…”

Communication Law and Policy: The State of Research and Theory

“…Nevertheless, not all studies have consistently found significant effects for pretrial publicity (Bruschke & Loges, 1999Riedel, 1993;Shaffer, 1986), though occasionally the failure to find effects was simply the result of ceiling effects (Finkelstein, 1995). That is, in some studies, individual jurors were already so negatively disposed toward the defendant that additional shifts of sentiment against the defendant could not be registered.…”

A Lei em Tela e a Tela da Lei: O Direito e os Reality Shows

“…Todavia, os trabalhos que tratam da questão apresentam perspectivas muito diferentes entre si. Podemos observar a tensão entre o direito e a mídia como uma crise da democracia contemporânea (Garapon, 1996a;1996b;1996c;Garapon e Salas, 1997;Salas, 1998); uma invasão do espaço judicial pelas câmeras de TV (Lassiter, 1996); uma cobertura de notícias sobre crimes cujo impacto ambiental é grande, mas não gera apelo mediático (Lynch et alii, 2000); uma relação entre o direito e a literatura (Aristodemu, 1993); pela ótica do sistema de justiça criminal como um objeto da cultura popular (Newman, 1990); da justificativa do veredicto de jurados na mídia (Marder, 1997); dos efeitos da publicidade anterior a julgamentos e seus veredictos (Bruschke e Loges, 1999); do tratamento legal de publicidade anterior a julgamentos (Chesterman, 1997); da distorção da verdade e da confusão entre fato e ficção em produtos culturais, e de suas implicações éticas (Cowan, 1998); das conexões entre a compreensão cotidiana do jurídico através da mídia e da sua relação com a ação legal (Steiner et alii, 1999).…”