The people v. the media: do the facts really matter?

• Author: Fitzpatrick, William J.
• Position: President's page

"[T]he prosecutor is also a lawyer and lie too has a client: the People. And the People are equally entitled to their day in court, to a fair and impartial trial, and to justice"--Vincent Bugliosi

WE ARE IN AN ERA where criminal justice has become entertainment. Instead of being entrusted with bringing justice on behalf of the American people, prosecutors are being ridiculed by barely literate self-proclaimed journalists and idiots blogging from their mothers basements. Our judgment calls become daytime television chatter. Our decisions that are ethical and lawful become abuse of power. We are under attack, and the media's thirst for salaciousness and ability to trample the truth has been streamlining this attack for decades. Once the media adopts a progressive societal issue and uses the criminal justice system as a template to advance that issue, the lowly prosecutor who tries to provide the public with the actual facts has an uphill, and many times unconquerable, battle.

I don't think my distaste as a 21st century prosecutor for the media's distortion of facts is novel. In case there are any "Doubting Toms" reading this message, I'll bring some historical context to this issue. In March 1964, Kitty Genovese was accosted and stabbed on a New York City street by a stranger, Winston Moseley. Shortly after the murder, a New York Times reporter with an agenda to suggest apathy amongst New Yorkers and an ambitious police commissioner met to discuss the case. Thereafter, The New York Times falsely reported that 38 neighbors watched indifferently as Kitty got stabbed to death. In fact, only two witnesses sat aimlessly, not 38--49 witnesses were interviewed, 10 people called, 16 people were police and actual eyewitnesses. This media-driven myth of an uncaring public has lived on for half a century.

The area of racism and the criminal justice system sheds an even greater light on the media's mischaracterization of facts. Is there racism in the criminal justice system? Yes. Are there some people in the criminal justice system who are racist? Without a doubt. Should we do everything we can as prosecutors and human beings to eliminate it? Certainly. But every case that involves a defendant and victim of different race isn't about race. The prosecution of O.J. Simpson had nothing to do with race. The fact that Mark Fuhrman had used racial epithets 10 years before the crime had nothing to do with Simpson brutally slaying Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald...