Oba Chandler

Angels and Demons is a popular feature news story by Thomas French. The story is centered on the murder of three women who went on vacation in Florida in June of 1989. After a long police investigation, Oba Chandler was convicted of the murders and is currently on death row.

All three women were found floating in Tampa Bay, close to a harbor, with their feet and hands tied, their necks attached by rope to concrete blocks and duct tape over their mouths. This particular case was interesting because the police used billboards in an attempt to find any information about the killer.

The murder of the three women, a mother and her three daughters, was highly publicized in Florida and around the country. With all this publicity, is it safe to say that Oba Chandler got a fair trial, which he is guaranteed under the constitution? The local news and every major paper ran stories when Oba was believed to be a suspect, and while he stood trial.

A book about the 1976 trial

Let us look at the 1976 Supreme Court Case of Nebraska v. Stuart. The basis of the case posed the question of if it was necessary for there to be a reduced intensity of reporting in some legal hearings. The reason for this was a concern for obtaining a neutral jury selection and ultimately a fair trial.

The Supreme Court decided that it was inappropriate to bar media reporting in a court case because it was “the most serious and intolerable violation of the first amendment. This is in opposition to the idea of prior restraint which basically states that certain material may not be published and advocated censorship of the press in certain cases. There was one caveat in the court’s decision which stated that there was an exception in the case of “clear and present danger” and if it would impede a fair and speedy trial from happening.

The court decided also that there were steps that the lower court could do in order to prevent the mass amount of publicity from interfering with a fair trial. They stated that the location of the trial could be moved to an area where there was not as much publicity, such as moving a case from Columbus to say Pemberville. They also stated that the trial could be postponed until the publicity died down some. The final two suggestions that the court gave as potential solutions to the problem were: asking the jurors questions to determine their level of bias and sequestering the jury during the trial proceedings.

Questions:

  1. In the case of Oba Chandler, do you feel a fair trial was given?
  2. Do you feel the solutions that the court gave in the Nebraska v. Stuart trial are valid solutions to the potential problem of intense publicity impeding a fair trial?
  3. In what cases, if any, should a restriction on the press be mandated?
  4. Do you know any other court cases that are related to the issue of prior restraint?