Sheppard, Samuel H.

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

Page 162

In 1954 a sensational murder trial laid the groundwork for a significant U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the rights of criminal defendants to a fair trial. Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard, a prominent Cleveland osteopath, was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, Marilyn Sheppard. He was sentenced to life in prison, where he remained before his appeal reached the Supreme Court in 1966. The Court ordered a new trial, which led to Sheppard's eventual acquittal. Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 86 S. Ct. 1507, 16 L. Ed. 2d 600, became the leading case on PRETRIAL PUBLICITY, shaping how judges have since treated the difficult problem of guaranteeing a defendant a fair trial in the face of massive media attention.

On July 4, 1954, 31-year-old Marilyn Sheppard who was four months pregnant, was bludgeoned to death in the bedroom of the couple's impressive Lake Erie, Pennsylvania home. According to Sheppard, he had been sleeping on a downstairs couch when he heard noises and moans coming from the bedroom where his wife was sleeping. He ran to help her but was knocked unconscious by a bushy-haired man. He awoke to find that his wife had been murdered and then chased the intruder across the lawn where he was knocked out a second time. After awakening outside the house, he immediately telephoned the mayor of Cleveland, his friend, and related the story.

Both prosecutors and the media seized on Sheppard as the murderer. Even before his arrest three weeks later, police interrogated Sheppard at the coroner's inquest without his lawyer present. Rumors of marital difficulties and Sheppard's alleged extra-marital affairs, led the Cleveland newspapers to sensationalize the case until it became notorious nationwide.

At the trial in the fall of 1954, prosecutors had no clear-cut motive to explain why Sheppard had allegedly killed his wife. The best they could offer was the intimation that he had been having an affair with a former laboratory technician. Following a chaotic trial, in which the media had telephones, special tables, opportunities to photograph the jurors, and even interviews with the judge on the courthouse steps, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Sheppard received a life sentence.

From 1954 to 1966, Sheppard continuously appealed the jury's verdict. He argued that pretrial publicity had destroyed his chance of a fair trial by prejudicing jurors. His appeals failed until 1964, when U.S. District...