I have posted before about the danger that ignorant media coverage poses to criminal cases – especially TV news coverage.  The reporting is just awful.  One particular local channel brags that they are helping law enforcement clean up the criminals out of our community.  In reality, they are just posting mugshots and reading law enforcement press releases.

I was in court yesterday for a pretrial hearing in a high profile southern WV case.  Up to that point, the media had not appeared at the prior court hearings – most likely because they didn’t know about them.  Somebody had apparently tipped them off about the hearing taking place.  Some prosecutors, when they realize that their plea offer is not going to be accepted and that they are going to have to try the case, will get the media involved which effectively poisons the jury pool.

The TV news crew filmed the hearing, obviously taking careful notes about what was being said (I say that sarcastically).  Instead of broadcasting the audio from the hearing, they substituted their reporter’s voice, which was completely misstating the substance of the hearing.  Then, as my client and I were leaving the courtroom, they ambushed us putting cameras and microphones in our faces.  The reporter asked, “what do you want to tell the victim’s family?”

The funny thing about this is that 30 minutes earlier we were all quietly sitting in the courtroom, along with other attorneys and defendants, waiting for the judge to appear.  They had every opportunity to film my client at that time.  They had every opportunity to request an interview or a statement, or whatever.  They had every opportunity to ask questions about where the case was heading.  I’m not saying they would have gotten any information from us, but they made no attempt.  They are obviously not interested in the facts, just sensationalism.