Free press vs. fair trial: Clash of truth, justice
Could you give Nicholas Sheley a fair trial?
Maybe that’s not a fair question.
After all, you read this newspaper, which treats the eight-time murder defendant as the local celebrity he is – not the famous kind, the infamous.
You know a lot of details about him, about his past, about what he is alleged to have done last summer.
Would that – should that – disqualify you to be a juror for his trial?
THAT QUESTION might be purely academic.
The Nicholas Sheley Traveling Circus is playing these days in Galesburg, where Knox County officials are trying to figure out whether the guy is crazy or cagey – or a little of both.
He pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in Galesburg. Then he said he wanted to plead guilty. Then he said he didn’t.
Maybe there will be trials. Maybe there won’t.
But he has people in the justice system in Knox County jumping through legal hoops they must navigate to ensure his right to due process. Sheley is a nightmare for judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
And for the notion of speedy justice – not necessarily for him, but for eight homicide victims and their families.
SO, UNTIL SOME state slides a needle into his arm, or he walks out of jail a free man, everyone will, to some extent, be playing the Nick Sheley game.
That game will, at some point, be played in Whiteside County – temporarily, at least. It is here that he is charged with killing five of the eight people who were beaten to death in late June 2008.
A Knox County judge Friday denied a motion for a change of venue, which was a defense attempt to get the trial moved to another county.
If defense attorneys sought to move a trial out of Knox County, what are the odds that the defense also will try to avoid a trial in Whiteside County, Sheley’s home, where people know him best?
WHY CAN’T Sheley, according to his lawyers, get a fair trial in Galesburg?
“[T]he nature and amount of pretrial publicity has tainted the potential jury pool in Knox County and has created a significant prejudice against [Sheley] in this community,” according to an affidavit that defense attorneys filed last week.
The defense argued that the folks in Knox County “have been exposed to a barrage of highly prejudicial material that includes inflammatory, inaccurate and inadmissible evidence.”
Facts, of course, are highly prejudicial.
“Inflammatory” is a matter of opinion.
Those lawyers offered no evidence that any news reports were “inaccurate.”
And the court has yet to rule on what jurors would see and hear at trial.
Other than that, they have a point.
PHONE SURVEYS have found that the Sheley case is no secret in Knox County, where one of the eight killings was committed.
Since then, Sheley has been convicted and sentenced for attacking guards at the county jail there, which has been his home for the past year.
Defense attorneys report that an automated phone survey made 3,619 calls in Knox County to get 997 people to respond – “to one degree or another” – to questions about their knowledge and opinions about the Sheley prosecution.
Less than a third (29 percent) claimed to be “very familiar” with the case. More than half (53 percent) said they remembered some details.
Of the 708 respondents who weighed in on the question of Sheley’s guilt, 68 percent chose “probably guilty,” 1 percent went for “probably innocent,” and 13 percent said they had no opinion.
So, to get a 12-member jury (plus a couple of alternates) of people with no opinion, you should need no more than 100 or so potential jurors. That doesn’t sound so daunting.
Anywhere they might move a trial would immediately catch the attention of the local media, which would write more articles and air more reports about Sheley and his criminal charges, which would put fresh information into the minds of a new pool of prospective jurors.
Defense attorneys everywhere tend to believe their clients cannot get a fair trial anywhere.
YET AGAIN, WE hear the clash between a free press and a fair trial.
We might also label it a struggle between the interests of truth and justice.
The press seeks the truth. Truth can best be found, we believe, through a full report of everything and everybody involved with the defendant – past, present, future – and the crime(s) with which he is charged.
The court system is interested in justice. That involves a much more selective use of the facts, considering only information that is deemed legally admissible. Evidence is limited to that which is ruled to be relevant and legally obtained.
That’s not a bad thing. The system keeps authorities from kicking down your door without a warrant or beating you until you confess.
You might say the truth is objective; justice is subjective.
The press is interested in justice, but not at the expense of the truth.
SHELEY’S RECORD in Galesburg has made him some enemies.
To support their attempt to move Sheley’s trial out of Knox County, defense attorneys filed an affidavit that contains comments from some local residents who responded to that phone survey.
Several people suggested that Sheley be executed – some urged a hanging (“He should be strung up”), others an electrocution (“He needs to spend a lifetime in the electric chair” and “Cook the b-----d!”)
Others would prefer more of a vigilante approach.
“Sheley oughta be tortured and then fried,” one said.
“They oughta take him out behind the courthouse and shoot his a--,” another suggested. “He oughta be shot like a rabid dog,” added another.
One generously offered a last drink.
“Take him down to the VFW or the American Legion and buy him a beer,” the respondent said, “and shoot him right in the back of the head.”
SUCH ANGER is understandable, given the horrific nature of the crimes with which Sheley is charged.
Under those circumstances, it’s easy to forget the presumption of innocence.
But jurors must do that. They are instructed to disregard anything they’ve heard previously about the case, and to consider only the evidence presented at trial.
So, knowing what you know – thinking what you think – could you give Nicholas Sheley a fair trial?
