Tag Archives: crime

When Famous People Are On Trial

The Jury by John Morgan

The Jury by John Morgan

As I write this post, two celebrities are on trial and one famous person has been identified by the media as the “star witness” in a murder trial.

Former U.S. Senator John Edwards is on trial in federal court in North Carolina, charged with using almost $1 million in campaign funds to hide an affair with the mother of his child.

In federal court in the District of Columbia, former major league pitcher Roger Clemens is on trial, charged with lying to Congress about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

In Chicago, Jennifer Hudson has already testified against her estranged brother-in-law who is charged with the murders of Hudson’s mother, brother, and 7-year-old nephew.

In high-profile cases such as these, a number of issues may arise that writers and commentators should understand fully. For the most part, these issues center on pretrial publicity.

Change of venue

In high-profile cases, defense attorneys often move for a change of venue. They ask the court to move the trial to another location, usually a place other then where the crime occurred. The fear is that potential jurors who live in an area that has been saturated with media coverage about a case will be unable to set aside whatever they have seen or heard about it. A change of venue is not automatic. Even as to the Watergate defendants, the courts held that although the pretrial publicity was massive, there was no need to grant the defense requests to move the trial from Washington, D.C.

On the other hand, the federal trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was moved from Oklahoma to Denver, Colorado. In the murder trial of Casey Anthony, the judge denied a defense request to move the case out of Orlando, where the body of Anthony’s two-year-old daughter was found, but brought in jurors from another part of Florida to hear the case.

Jury Selection

Defendants have a constitutional right to a fair trial. That includes having jurors who can decide a case based solely on the evidence produced at trial, not on anything they have heard or read about the case, and not on any feelings they may have about the personalities involved in the case.

In high profile cases especially, prosecutors and defense attorneys often use jury questionnaires and/or rely on the jury selection process, known as voir dire, to select impartial jurors.

Once a full slate of potential jurors has been identified, the parties may submit proposed questions to the judge for inclusion in a questionnaire that is provided to those potential jurors. In addition to routine questions such as whether the person can sit on a case that may last several weeks, the questionnaire may seek to identify the biases of persons who are in the jury pool. The voir dire, that is, the process of questioning potential jurors prior to trial, has the same purpose.

If a case has garnered lots of publicity, the court may cast a wide net for potential jurors who can decide the case fairly. In the case of John Edwards, 185 potential jurors were initially summoned. Ninety potential jurors were called in Roger Clemens‘s case.

There are similar issues when the celebrity is a potential witness and especially, as with Jennifer Hudson, the celebrity witness is also a surviving family member of murder victims. Defense attorneys are concerned that jurors will be swayed by the witness’s star power, especially in a case where sympathy will be a strong factor anyway.

Jury instructions

You might think that judges issue instructions to jurors only at the end of a trial before deliberations begin. But in fact, the judge may instruct the jury at any time before and during a trial. And judges use jury instructions to help ensure the selection of unbiased jurors.

The judge presiding in John Edwards‘s trial cautioned potential jurors not to tell anyone, even family members, that they had been summoned in the case. She also told them to disregard anything they thought they knew from watching legal dramas on TV because such shows may mischaracterize the law or how things work in the courtroom.

“You can watch Law & Order, Judge Judy, John Grisham; put it out of your mind,” she told them. “I will tell you what the law is.”

Jury selection for Roger Clemens was protracted even as to simple questions about whether or not jurors had a reason to be excused. Some jurors told the judge in the case that they could not serve on the jury for religious reasons. One juror told the judge that justice was in God’s hands. “Who’s supposed to do it while we’re here on Earth?” the judge asked.

In selecting a jury for William Balfour, charged with murdering three members of Jennifer Hudson‘s family, jurors were advised early on to avoid publicity in the case. They were even cautioned not to watch Hudson’s recent appearance on American Idol. One potential juror was dismissed after he admitted that he was a “big fan” of Hudson’s and had read a lot about the case.

The questioning of jurors in Balfour’s case was also complicated by the number of potential jurors whose lives had been touched by violence. At least two people summoned for jury duty had family members who were murdered. Another was dismissed because a child, Hudson’s nephew, had been murdered and, she said, she just couldn’t get past that.

Want more?

These are just some of the issues that surround celebrity trials. Do you have any questions? Would you be interested in hearing more? I could discuss when and why juries are sequestered, how jury selection experts are used, and other issues that you might want to understand when crafting your novel about a high profile crime. Was this helpful to you? Let me know!

Why Police Don’t Always Make An Arrest

Recently, I had the privilege of publishing my very first blog post on Writer Unboxed, one of Writer’s Digest‘s 101 Best Websites for Writers since 2007. Many of you commented on my post or on Twitter that you would be interested in reading my then yet-to-be published blog. Well, this is it.

I’m calling my blog Book Ends and Odds because I plan to discuss odds and ends that affect my writing life (and life in general, for that matter):  books I am reading, movies, pop culture, criminal cases, legal issues, writing, cooking, sports, anything that piques my interest and that might generate story ideas. I also have a sentimental reason for choosing the title. In college, I helped develop and edit a literary magazine which I called Bookends. (Think Simon and Garfunkel.) So please, enjoy! Here’s my first post on my first site.

Why Police Don’t Always Make An Arrest

pair of handcuffs

When a criminal case is high profile, it becomes instant fodder for news outlets, pundits, writers, dinner party guests, and others. Many of their resulting comments will be on the mark. Others will fall short of understanding how the system really works. It is important for writers and others to make details sound authentic and plot points, realistic. So from time to time, I will address issues that seem to be a source of misunderstanding.

A criminal case often gets a lot of attention in the news when someone is arrested for the crime. We have all seen the infamous perp walk. But sometimes a case becomes high profile when police have a suspect but no arrest is made.

How can this happen?

Everyone knows that police need probable cause to make an arrest. That just means that it has to be more likely than not that the person arrested committed the crime. But even when probable cause exists, the facts can remain murky. Then it is up to a prosecutor, working with the police, to decide how best to proceed.

In the federal system, and in states that use the grand jury, it is possible to work a case as a grand jury original. Absent an arrest, the grand jury can subpoena witnesses, documents, and other evidence in an effort to determine the facts surrounding the commission of the crime. A grand jury indictment will lead to an arrest.

In states that don’t use the grand jury, or where proceeding by grand jury is optional, the prosecutor, with law enforcement personnel, can still interview witnesses and continue to investigate a case. Ultimately, a decision is made by the grand jury, or by the prosecutor without a grand jury, whether to file criminal charges.

It is common to proceed by way of grand jury original when there is a suspect in one crime but other crimes may be involved. If the grand jury is looking at a serial killer or a drug conspiracy or a terror plot, for instance, a premature arrest could tip the prosecution’s hand – or expose an informant or undercover agent – before all relevant evidence can be gathered.

It is also common to proceed without an arrest, for example, in a case where two individuals have shot at one another, an incident often referred to as a criss-cross. If one of the two is killed, the easy thing might be to charge the surviving shooter in the death of the other. But what if the deceased shooter initiated the conflict? What if the survivor acted in self defense? None of these facts may be clear at the time of the incident, but may be sorted out by giving the case a good, hard look.

I have been thinking about this lately because of Trayvon Martin, although this post is not about that case. At this point, a special prosecutor has been appointed to determine all the facts surrounding the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Regardless of whatever happened earlier in the case, it seems wise now to let that investigation run its course.

Proceeding in this way, in any case where the facts may not be fully known or understood at first, is judicious. The best outcome is always whatever would be a just result, a result based on thorough investigation and a fair evaluation of the evidence. A rush to judgment does not always lead to justice.

So, does this post help you understand why police don’t always make an arrest in a case, even when a suspect has been identified? Would you like to see more posts like this one? Do you have particular criminal case issues you would like me to discuss? I would love to hear from you. Thanks for landing on this page.