M
Mr._Clark
Audioholic Samurai
Here's the Sixth Amendment:
>>>In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.<<<(emphasis added)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/sixth_amendment
There have been a few Supreme Court decisions that overturned a conviction when there was "a trial atmosphere that [was] utterly corrupted by press coverage” but complete ignorance is not required for a jury to be impartial as noted in the Skilling case:
>>>Prominence does not necessarily produce prejudice, and juror impartiality, we have reiterated, does not require ignorance. Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 722 (1961) (Jurors are not required to be “totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved”; “scarcely any of those best qualified to serve as jurors will not have formed some impression or opinion as to the merits of the case.”); Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 155–156 (1879) (“[E]very case of public interest is almost, as a matter of necessity, brought to the attention of all the intelligent people in the vicinity, and scarcely any one can be found among those best fitted for jurors who has not read or heard of it, and who has not some impression or some opinion in respect to its merits.”). A presumption of prejudice, our decisions indicate, attends only the extreme case.<<<
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/358/
The Boston marathon bomber (Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) lost his pretrial publicity argument at the Supreme Court:
>>>On April 15, 2013, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev planted and detonated two homemade pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding hundreds. Three days later, as investigators began to close in, the brothers fled. In the process, they murdered a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer, carjacked a graduate student, and fought a street battle with police during which Dzhokhar inadvertently ran over and killed Tamerlan. Dzhokhar eventually abandoned the vehicle and hid in a covered boat being stored in a nearby backyard. He was arrested the following day. . . .
The Court of Appeals vacated Dzhokhar’s capital sentences on two grounds. First, the court held that the District Court abused its discretion during jury selection by declining to ask about the kind and degree of each prospective juror’s media exposure, as required by that court’s decision in Patriarca v. United States, 402 F. 2d 314. Second, the court held that the District Court abused its discretion during sentencing when it excluded evidence concerning Tamerlan’s possible involvement in the Waltham murders.
Held: The Court of Appeals improperly vacated Dzhokhar’s capital sentences.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes. The Sixth Amendment nonetheless guaranteed him a fair trial before an impartial jury. He received one. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.<<<
United States v. Tsarnaev
www.law.cornell.edu
I have no doubt Trump will make this type of an argument if he's convicted, but it it's extremely difficult to get a conviction overturned on a pretrial publicity argument.
