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Dr Samuel Sheppard — Part 2
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Sheppard v. Maxwell No. 16077
the ‘interview’ on their television sets. Calcasieu Par-
ish has a population of approximately 150,000 people.
* * * * *
“Three members of the jury which convicted him had
stated on voir dire that they had seen and heard
Rideaw’s televised ‘interview’ with the sheriff on at
least one occasion. Two members of the jury were
deputy sheriffs of Calcasieu Parish. Rideau’s counsel
had requested that these jurors be excused for cause,
having exhausted all of their peremptory challenges,
but these challenges for cause had been denied by the
trial judge.” 373 U.S. 723-25. (Emphasis supplied.)
Mr. Justice Stewart, after observing that “the plan [the
filming of the confession and its telecast] was carried out
with the active cooperation and participation of the local
law enforcement officers,” concluded that “without pausing
to examine a particularized transcript of the voir dire
examination of the members of the jury, ... due process of
law in this case required a trial before a jury drawn from
a community of people who had not seen and heard Rideau’s
televised ‘interview.’ ”
We are of the opinion that neither Irvin nor Rideau sup-
port a holding that the jurors’ testimony had to be rejected
y the trial judge and that a fair jury could not possibly
have been obtained in this case.
In Irvin, the Court was dealing with a case where eight
of the twelve jurors thought the defendant guilty, some
of them stating that evidence would be needed to overcome
this belief. The basic thrust of the Court’s holding is found
in its conclusion that “it would be difficult to say that each
fof the eight opinionated jurors] could exclude this pre-
conception of guilt from his deliberations.” It was only
against this background that the Court ruled that the trial
court should have rejected the jurors’ statements that they
could render an impartial verdict despite their opinions.
These vitiating opinions, moreover, were formed on the
basis of publieity“nat only of Irvin’s criminal record, but
of statements that.he had actually confessed to several
murders, including the one for which he was convicted. In
the present case, the publicity contained accusation only
by innuendo. So far as Irvin is concerned, indeed, it would
seem that Dr. Sheppard was accorded rather more than the
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No. 16077 Sheppard v. Maxwell OW
constitution requires, for each of the twelve jurors who
voted to convict him testified they were entirely free of any
opinion as to his guilt or innocence. The Court in Irvin,
by way of contrast, ruled that _
“To hold that the mere existence of any preconceived
notion as to the guilt or innocence of an accused,
without more, is sufficient to rebut the presumption of
a prospective juror’s impartiality would be to establish
an impossible standard. It is sufficient if the juror
can lay aside his impression or opinion and render a
verdict based on the evidence presented in court.”
366 U.S. 723.
Irvin, we think, provides no basis for ruling that the pub-
licity in the present case was such as to “rebut the presump-
tion of a prospective juror’s impartiality.”
The facts of Rideau set it even further apart from Dr.
Sheppard’s case. To ask three jurors to put entirely aside
the visual spectacle of a confession by the very defendant
they are charged to presume innocent is indeed close to
demanding the impossible. To believe that the balance of
that jury could remain ignorant of what their fellow
jurors knew would be folly. It was far different, and we
think not unreasonable, to ask a jury to ignore the sus-
picions and accusations of the press in deliberating Dr.
Sheppard’s guilt or innocence. Compare Bearden v. United
States, 320 F(2) 99, 101-103 (CA 5, 1968), cert. denied,
376 U.S, 922 (1964). :
While it was not expressly relied upon by the District
Court, we believe that the decision in United States ex rel,
Bloeth v. Denno, 318 F (2) 364 (CA 2, 1963), cert. denied,
372 U.S. 978 (1963) is distinguishable upon the same
grounds as Irvin and Rideau.
Other cases relied upon by the District Court, Delaney
v. United States, 199 F(2) 107 (CA 1, 1952); Marshail
v. United States, 360 U.S. 810 (1959); United States v.
Accardo, 298 F (2) 133 (CA 7, 1962) ; Krogmann v. United
States, 225 F(2) 220 (CA 6, 1955), are all immediately
distinguishable as cases involving the exercise by federal
appellate courts of their supervisory power over trials in
the district courts. But they are further distinguishable
on their facts. In Delaney the pretrial publicity about an
accused Collector of Internal Revenue, Delaney, included
extensive coverage of public hearings before a congressional
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