{"id":36928,"date":"2008-03-26T16:35:41","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T21:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-legal\/uncategorized\/habeas-corpus-pretrial-publicity.html"},"modified":"2008-03-26T16:35:41","modified_gmt":"2008-03-26T21:35:41","slug":"habeas-corpus-pretrial-publicity","status":"publish","type":"corporate","link":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/litigation-disputes\/habeas-corpus-pretrial-publicity.html","title":{"rendered":"Habeas Corpus: Pretrial Publicity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Petitioner, a Detroit police officer, was tried and convicted of second-degree murder arising out of the death of a suspect which occurred during a struggle while police were attempting to arrest and search the decedent. Petitioner sought a Writ of Habeas Corpus. The district court held that the conviction should be vacated because the pretrial publicity was pervasive and prejudicial and so saturated the local community that it became impossible for the defendant to receive a fair trial in the city. The events noted by the court to support this conclusion included (a) statements by the mayor and the chief of police which were prejudicial and appeared to conclude immediately after the incident that the petitioner was guilty; (b) the rapid, multi-million dollar settlement by the city of a lawsuit by the decedent's estate; (c) media reports that the police department was preparing for potential rioting if the defendants were acquitted; and (d) that many of the widely publicized facts were not admissible at petitioner's trial. In light of the pervasiveness and the prejudicial nature of the pretrial publicity, the court concluded that a presumption of prejudice was proper and that the jurors' claims that they could be impartial should not be believed.<\/p>

Further, the court found, in contrast to the Michigan Supreme Court's review of the matter, that the extraneous prejudicial influences that reached the jury were so great that the petitioner was deprived of his Sixth amendment and Due Process rights and that the errors could not be considered harmless. In this respect the court noted three incidents which were established in the post-trial affidavits of several jurors: (1) the jury's viewing of the film Malcolm X during its deliberations; (2) the jury's exposure to information that the city was bracing for a riot in the event of an acquittal; and (3) the juror's consideration of extrinsic evidence regarding petitioner's prior participation in the police unit STRESS, even though there was no evidence concerning this produced at trial. The court concluded that based on the nature of these influences and the jurors' affidavits, that the Michigan Supreme Court's determination that the evidence against the petitioner was overwhelming and thus that the extraneous influences were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt was an unreasonable application of Federal law. The court held that the petitioner was entitled to relief because the errors "had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury's verdict" and, therefore, that the error was not harmless. Larry<\/p>

Nevers v. George Killinger, et al<\/u>., Case No. 97-CV-75175-DT, 12\/30\/97, Zatkoff, L.P. (dkt. #52). This article was prepared by William F. Frey, a partner in our Litigation Department, and previously appeared in the May 1998 issue of the Michigan Bar Journal.<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Petitioner, a Detroit police officer, was tried and convicted of second-degree murder arising out of the death of a suspect which occurred during a struggle while police were attempting to arrest and search the decedent. Petitioner sought a Writ of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_stopmodifiedupdate":true,"_modified_date":"","_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false},"corporate_categories":[6529,6520,6530],"class_list":["post-36928","corporate","type-corporate","status-publish","hentry","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes__criminal-litigation","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes__criminal-litigation__other-business-crime"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate\/36928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/corporate"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"corporate_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate_categories?post=36928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}