In what ways might pretrial news coverage be damaging to the objective outcome of a criminal trial?
Given the emphasis that our society places on freedom of the press and freedom of speech, do you believe that judges should be allowed to issue gag rules restricting the ability of trial participants to discuss a case outside of court?

Question

In what ways might pretrial news coverage be damaging to the objective outcome of a criminal trial? 
Given the emphasis that our society places on freedom of the press and freedom of speech, do you believe that judges should be allowed to issue gag rules restricting the ability of trial participants to discuss a case outside of court?

Shadow · Answer

Pretrial news coverage would influence a jury.

justus · Answer

Ah I undertand

Shadow · Answer

As far as if a judge should be allowed to do that, it's basically the juxtaposition of the right to a fair trial and freedom of speech.

Shadow · Answer

That kind of question I'm not sure if it's legally been discussed before, but it's one of constitutional gravity.

justus · Answer

Oh I see

Shadow · Answer

Honestly, it's an interesting question and in order to give a comfortable answer I'd have to review the legal literature. But off the top of my head, I'd prefer freedom of speech over the right to a fair trial.

mhchen · Answer

Wow this is such interesting. I remember a guy at a court in a reddit ama post saying that one time a guy on jury shouted out "HEY I KNOW THAT GUY HE WAS CONVICTED OF BLAH BLAH BEFORE" and the judge was MAD (and everyone else was too) because he "tainted" the entire jury pool, meaning that because of that, the jury pool could be biased in this trial, and they'd have to replace every jury.

This news thing is just like that so I could see why this could be damaging to the trial outcome.

I'm not sure how far a news should be able to cover a court, cause I also wanna see some juicy stuff happening there. (I wonder what that new zealand guy's sentencing was, haven't heard about him in months)