Sam Sheppard

surface-to-air missile Sheppard rivulets On July 4, 1954, the wife of a handsome young doctor, Sam Sheppard, was viciously murdered in the bedroom of their home in Bay Village, Ohio, on the shore of Lake Erie. Sheppard denied any involvement in the murder and described his avow battle with the killer he described as bushy-haired. Starting on the day of the murder, the media began to attack Sheppard on any occasion they could. Stories were obtained in un respectable, and to the highest degree unlawful ways. Even though they were permitted to do so by the courts, difference into Sheppards ho practice and looking through his belongings was not the most ethical practice.Also, though the courts also all in acknowledgeed them to witness the testimony of Sheppard about his wifes death, they really shouldnt dumbfound agreed. Stories were write in an unscrupulous manner. The trial in the lead the trial was a meeting between the coroner, Samuel Gerber, and Sheppard, in which Gerber f ired questions at Sheppard in front of the entire community without Sheppards lawyer present. The media was allowed to sit in on this hearing and wrote stories about Sheppard being unfairly given too untold leeway as a murder suspect (law2).Finally, the amount of stories pen about the trial and murder was higher than had been printed in Cleveland about a single murder. Cleveland newspapers printed stories almost every single day for the duration of the situation. intimately of these were speculation only, however, or editorials that were feast on the front page and turn overd to be actual articles. Because of the way these stories were run, the jury and most of Cleveland believed that Sheppard was, in fact, guilty (384 U. S. 333, 363). The stories written through the duration of the murder case were one of the main things that were baneful to Sheppards case.The jurys view of Sheppard was adversely affected by the news stories such as the most famous one of all Somebody Is Ge tting Away With Murder. They printed biased stories that the jury members were allowed to read, which gave them a negative view of Sheppard even before he testified. News articles run by local papers also distorted the evidence in the case. An important piece of information that was published dealt with the stock evidence. Dr. Mohammed Tahir, a illustrious forensic scientist in Indianapolis, will compare DNA from the samples with a wrinkle stain recovered from a closet door of the Sheppard edroom. Tahir will use a process known as DNA amplification, often employ to study decomposed samples. Sir Alec Jeffreys, the British forensic scientist who invented DNA fingerprinting in the mid-1980s, describes the purpose as taking a small amount of material and make copies and recopies in a test tube until youve got enough to type. Out of quadruple blood samples tested, all cast off matched Eberlings. It gets very complicated scientifically, but basically we have a match on the porch of Eberling, which cuts down to 0. 5 percent, or even less, that it could be anybody else, he said (Affleck, A3).One of the detectives investigating the case was quoted by a newspaper stating that scientific tests at the Sheppard home have decidedly established that the killer washed off a trail of blood from the murder bedroom to the downstairs section. This led the public to believe that Sheppard was lying during his testimony, and believe it, they did. However, over ten years later, the Supreme woo ruled that Sheppards trial had been unfair collect to the Fourteenth Amendment that everyone shall have the right to a fair trial with an impartial jury.This, of course, was something that Sheppard had not gotten, due to the media. The court saw that, and believed it was true. So, because of the medias influence over the jury before and during the trial, Sheppard was released from prison. Sam Sheppard was attacked by the medias unethical practices so much during his trial that jou rnalism had set new boundaries to limit the power of the press pursual the final verdict. Because of the way that the media went about getting stories for their papers and the way stories were written, Sheppard was released from prison.Journalism whence set up new boundaries to assure that every person charge of a crime got a fair and just trial. Even though he set precedent for new practices that the media still follows, it is a outrage that it took something as horrific as his wifes murder to allow the media to see just how much power they had over justice. Work cited Affleck, John. Doctors dig up Sam Sheppards Body as Son Seeks to Clear Fathers Name. Associated Press. 18 September 1997 A3. . Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U. S. 333 (United States Supreme Court 1966). http//law2. umkc. edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/sheppard/Sheppard. htm