Irvin v. Dowd (366 U.S. 717)/Concurrence Frankfurter

by Felix Frankfurter

United States Supreme Court

366 U.S. 717

Irvin  v.  Dowd

 Argued: Nov. 9, 1960. --- Decided: June 5, 1961

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, concurring.

Of course I agree with the Court's opinion. But this is, unfortunately, not an isolated case that happened in Evansville, Indiana, nor an atypical miscarriage of justice due to anticipatory r ial by newspapers instead of trial in court before a jury.

More than one student of society has expressed the view that not the least significant test of the quality of a civilization is its treatment of those charged with crime, particularly with offenses which arouse the passions of a community. One of the rightful boasts of Western civilization is that the State has the burden of establishing guilt solely on the basis of evidence produced in court and under circumstances assuring an accused all the safeguards of a fair procedure. These rudimentary conditions for determining guilt are inevitably wanting if the jury which is to sit in judgment on a fellow human being comes to its task with its mind ineradicably poisoned against him. How can fallible men and women reach a disinterested verdict based exclusively on what they heard in court when, before they entered the jury box, their minds were saturated by press and radio for months preceding by matter designed to establish the guilt of the accused. A conviction so secured obviously constitutes a denial of due process of law in its most rudimentary conception.

Not a Term passes without this Court being importuned to review convictions, had in States throughout the country, in which substantial claims are made that a jury trial has been distorted because of inflammatory newspaper accounts-too often, as in this case, with the prosecutor's collaboration-exerting pressures upon potential jurors before trial and even during the course of trial, thereby making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to secure a jury capable of taking in, free of prepossessions, evidence submitted in open court. Indeed such extraneous influences, in violation of the decencies guaranteed by our Constitution, are sometimes so powerful that an accused is forced, as a practical matter, to forego trial by jury. See State of Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show, 338 U.S. 912, 915, 70 S.Ct. 252, 253, 94 L.Ed. 562. For one reason or another this Court does not undertake to review all such envenomed state prosecutions. But, again and again, such disregard of fundamental fairness is so flagrant that the Court is compelled, as it was only a week ago, to reverse a conviction in which prejudicial newspaper intrusion has poisoned the outcome. Janko v. United States, 366 U.S. 716, 81 S.Ct. 1662, 6 L.Ed.2d 846; see e.g., Marshall v. United States, 360 U.S. 310, 79 S.Ct. 1171, 3 L.Ed.2d 1250. See also Stroble v. State of California, 343 U.S. 181, 198, 72 S.Ct. 599, 607, 96 L.Ed. 872 (dissenting opinion); Shepherd v. State of Florida, 341 U.S. 50, 71 S.Ct. 549, 95 L.Ed. 740 (concurring opinion). This Court has not yet decided that the fair administration of criminal justice must be subordinated to another safeguard of our constitutional system-freedom of the press, properly conceived. The Court has not yet decided that, while convictions must be reversed and miscarriages of justice result because the minds of jurors or potential jurors were poisoned, the poisoner is constitutionally protected in plying his trade.

Notes