A star like Michael Vick could have their career ruined by media coverage on a certain trial. They automatically assumed that Michael Vick was guilty, after, he beat his dogs. It ruined his career.

Take Kobe Bryant for example— the media had completely unfair coverage of him, his image of a superstar athlete was tarnished for a while, and the media made it to seem like he was a rapist. Maybe he was just cheating on his wife—like a regular guy cheats on their wife—who knows what was going on with his mind that day.

After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.

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.

This debate is not about the media’s penchant for mudslinging, or its gleeful malice in exposing the alleged crimes of the rich and famous. This debate is about whether the media prevents celebrities from getting a fair trial.

Would you hire such a person—someone who shamelessly praised and exalted himself while slinging mud at the character and reputations of others? Of course not. Anyone who sought employment like this would sentence himself to a continuous spot in the unemployment line!

Yet many politicians run for office (seek to be hired by the voting public) by slinging mud at their opponents. Few, it seems, shy away from touting their own virtues while launching verbal attacks with wild accusations, rumors and innuendo against their rivals—all in hopes of attaining office by virtually any means necessary. And, the mindset goes, if that calls for tarnishing the reputation of others—tearing down their hopes and dreams, and even ripping apart marriages and families—then so be it. Everyone and everything is considered fair game.

My opponent’s final example is almost absurd enough to be funny.

On this topic, Mr. Bryant says,

After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.



Leaving aside how a woman can only “feel” that she didn’t consent (it seems to me that the very definition of consent requires her to be aware of giving consent), I very much hope that the “regular guy who cheats on his wife” doesn’t experience miscommunication on the issue in the way Mr. Bryant did.

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

Through social media, litigators now have unprecedented access to the public's conversations, attitudes and opinions, giving valuable insight into the cognitive filter that influences the fact-finder's perceptions.
Through tracking the social media on message boards, in readers' discussions, in the news media and in blogs, litigators can study attitudes about a subject, client or case. They can learn unknown or little-known attitudes and opinions, leading to more informed jury research and, therefore, a wiser trial strategy. There is an abundance of reader reactions to news stories on blogs and in online comments that provides a whole new access to what the potential jury pool is twww.law.com... about cases that have been publicized.

Jessica Binkerd, 22, was sentenced to five years by Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Brian Hill for a fatal DUI accident. During the trial, Binkerd was advised by her defense attorney, Steve Balash, to remove incriminating photos of herself on her Myspace.
Searching individual jurors can be challenging -- juror names are not always available to counsel and, when they are, there often is very little time before trial to search those names.

The question at issue is not whether the evidence the government obtained against Rod Blagojevich was obtained legally, nor whether the media is sympathetic to the man. The article to which my opponent linked is hardly to the point, since it discusses the impeachment hearing of the former governor – as I stated in my opening post, the case has not yet reached the point of a criminal trial.

I would prefer to think that it is my semi-informed opinion that Mr. Bryant is a rapist, but if my opponent insists then I will concede that I’m making an assumption. And furthermore, since I have no personal knowledge of either Mr. Bryant or the woman who alleges he raped her, I have formed that opinion on the basis of what I have read in the media. As a matter for another debate, I could argue that the phrase “I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter” could be taken as a confession to rape, but that would be a fight for another time.

For this debate, my distrust of the stories pro basketball players tell about their female conquests is utterly immaterial. If I had been in the jury pool as Mr. Bryant’s trial began, I would no doubt have been excluded “for cause” as soon as I said that I had heard of the case and believed he was most likely guilty.

I would not say that the media gives anyone a fair trial, although they sometimes make speedy judgments.

But, thanks to the U.S. Constitution, and in particular to the Sixth Amendment which I cited, we are not tried in the media, or in the “court of public opinion”, or by a monarch – we are guaranteed a trial in the judicial system, before a jury unless we choose to waive that right, in which case we will be tried before a judge. And that includes celebrities.

My opponent would like to cloud the issue by playing on our sympathy for those whose fall from grace can be followed in the tabloid press. I will not play that game. This debate is about whether it is possible for a celebrity to receive a fair trial in the judicial system, and if not whether the media is responsible.

The jury is the human aspect of the legal system. It is a tool to ensure that the will of the people is represented in the courtroom. As such, it is inherently unpredictable, flexible, subjective. Many limits have been put on its subjectivity to ensure that it doesn’t degenerate into prejudice – among them the rules about how the jury pool must be representative of the overall population, the voir dire process in which jurors who cannot set aside their preconceptions are eliminated, the judge’s instructions to the jury at the end of the trial, ensuring that the men and women of the panel understand the points of law in the case. But none of that changes the basis that makes the jury system so unique and so important – its humanity, its unfairness.

It goes without saying that lawyers always do their utmost to get men on the jury who are apt to decide in favor of their clients. It is not the experience of jurors, neither is it their brain power that is the potent influence in their decisions. A skillful lawyer does not tire himself hunting for learning or intelligence in the box; if he knows much about man and his malting, he knows that all beings act from emotions and instincts, and that reason is not a motive factor. If deliberation counts for anything, it is to retard decision. The nature of the man himself is the element that determines the juror's bias for or against his fellow-man. Assuming that a juror is not a half-wit, his intellect can always furnish fairly good reasons for following his instincts and emotions.

Impeachment hearings, as a function of the legislative branch rather than the judicial branch of government, are outside the scope of this debate. The rules of evidence are different, the burden of proof is different, the judgment process is obviously different–since the politician is being judged by a panel of his peers who are involved in the issue. There really is no valid way to compare impeachment hearings with a criminal trial in terms of fairness.

This is not entirely true. Mr. Bryant is innocent of rape in the eyes of the law – that does not mean automatically that he is not a rapist in the commonly-used sense of “one who has had sexual relations with another person without that person’s consent.” It means that he cannot be penalized by the State, and that he is protected from certain forms of employment and other discrimination. It does not mean that a private individual is not free to believe whatever he or she wants to believe about Mr. Bryant. I have squarely faced my opponent’s charge that the media affects how people view celebrities and that the media coverage of the accusation against Mr. Bryant caused many people to believe that he was in fact a rapist before the charges were brought to court.

The media convinced me Mr. Bryant was a rapist, and the dismissal of his case did not persuade me otherwise. But I am not the law, and I do not represent our government or our legal system. This confusion between public opinion and legal institutions is seen in my opponent’s next paragraph as well:

But the fact that I have assumed Mr. Bryant to be guilty without having seen proof of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in no way means that he could not have received a fair trial. It only means that I would not be an appropriate juror in such a trial. Luckily, the entire judicial system of the United States does not rest on my participation or opinion.

I imagine that there are probably people in the U.S. with the exact opposite point of view from me; who heard about the case in the media and jumped to the conclusion that not only had the encounter been consensual, but that the complainant had probably intended to cry rape all along in order to secure a lucrative payment of gag money. People with that opinion would not make appropriate jurors for the trial either.

And I am sure there are people in the U.S. who have not made up their minds about whether or not Mr. Bryant was guilty. There are probably even people who do not follow basketball and thus would have no idea who Mr. Bryant is. Those are the people who would be appropriate jury members if the case had come to trial.

By and large, I think this statement is not true, and I would challenge my opponent to provide evidence that there is a systemic problem with judges’ decisions and rulings being influenced by either the news media or the “blogosphere”.

If this does sometimes happen–and judges are human, so they do sometimes make errors–there is an extensive system of appeals that is designed to remedy the situation. But a judge is trained in the law, and is trained in application of the law. It is his duty to apply the law as he finds it, without bias or consideration of facts outside the purview of the case.

If a celebrity, having waived his right to trial by jury, were tried by a judge who allowed information from the media to impact his decision, the celebrity would have the right to appeal the decision to a higher court.

In theory, if the jury system were actually fair, it would not matter what kind of people were seated on the jury as long as they were able to to judge the case on its merits. Any random sample of the population would be satisfactory as long as they were able to understand the law and the case, and did not have a personal stake in it. But in fact, if a defendant truly wants a fair trial involving the direct application of the letter of the law with as little bias as possible, he would be well advised to choose a bench trial over a jury trial. A jury trial is chosen in hopes that a panel of his fellow citizens will see the matter in a specific light.

The topic of the debate is to find out whether or not celebrities get a fair trial. I don't know why you are so hesitant to the points that I make about Rod Blagojevich. Rod Blagojevich was presumed to be guilty and all he really was just doing was playing politics as usual. Yet the media played with them, poked holes in his defense arguments, and, really pushed pressure on the Illinois state senate to impeach him. I don't see how you could ignore this.

First of all, my opponent argues that Mr. Bryant is a rapist, and, that he is only presumed innocent under the eyes of the law. My argument is not here whether Mr. Bryant is guilty or not, but, I'm talking about the perception which the media paints of this figure, Kobe Bryant in the eyes of many.

Jurors are affected by news they see. The jurors, like us, are human. They are affected by the opinions online. I have read numerous sources that all basically talk about how the jurors are affected by what people talk about online. They can get different kinds of opinions.

Now, I want to turn my audience to the bottom part of my opponent's post. Here my opponent ADMITS that you don't really get a guilty verdict anyways, or, that it isn't meant to be fair. He then goes on to say that they WANT things to be pointed out in a specific manner to the media.

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.

fair
–adjective
1. free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice: a fair decision; a fair judge.
2. legitimately sought, pursued, done, given, etc.; proper under the rules: a fair fight.

Impartiality is a two-fold requirement. First, ‘‘the selection of a petit jury from a representative cross section of the community is an essential component of the Sixth Amendment.’’ This requirement applies only to jury panels or venires from which petit
juries are chosen, and not to the composition of the petit juries themselves.…

Second, there must be assurance that the jurors chosen are unbiased, i.e., willing to decide the case on the basis of the evidence presented.