Pretrial publicity: Media coverage and guilt attribution¹

The author would like to thank James W. Coleman, Harold R. Kerbo, Edward Nelson, and Pat Tupac‐Yupanqui for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Abstract

Courts are often placed in the position of estimating community bias against a defendant on the basis of media coverage. This research attempts to estimate the degree to which one can predict pretrial guilt attribution from the publicity given a case by the media. The research also attempts to examine the relative impact of progressively higher levels of pretrial publicity using an information integration model. Data from five surveys of pretrial publicity, covering four murder cases, is analyzed. The results indicate that no media variable tested for was a good predictor of pretrial guilt attribution. The data also supports a linear rather than a configural model of information integration. The implications for these findings are also discussed.

Key concepts:

• Pretrial publicity
• information integration
• juries
• courts
• guilt attribution
• change of venue
• media
• trial
• jury selection

Notes

The author would like to thank James W. Coleman, Harold R. Kerbo, Edward Nelson, and Pat Tupac‐Yupanqui for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.