Media Law Finals

Front 1

What are the kinds of stories that can affect the sixth amendment

Back 1

1. Confessions or stories about the confessions that defendent claimed to made

2. Stories about the defendants performance on a test, like a polygraph

3. Stories about the defendants past criminal record or describe as a former convict

4. Stories that question the credibility of witnesses and that contain personal feelings
5. Stories about the defendant's character
6. Stories that tend to inflame public mood against the defendant
7. Stories published before a trial that suggest the defendant is guilty

Front 2

Traditional judicial remedies

Back 2

Voir Dire - getting rid of jurors/challenge for cause and peremptory challenges
Change of venue - changing the location of the trial
Continuance - Delaying the trial
Admonition of the jury - preventy the juring from talking about hte case
Sequestration of the jury - placing the jury in a hotel

Front 3

Why did the Supreme Court rule in favor of open trials?

Back 3

Too many trials were closed off by judges which kept the press from knowing the details of the trial thus leading to corruption

Front 4

What does a judge have to do in order to close off a trial?

Back 4

Determing whether the hearing had traditinoally been open to the pres or whether the public and press access will play a positive role in the judciial process.

Consider if there are reasonable alternative; trailor the closure to minimu interference; make finidng to support the decision and prepare a factual record

Front 5

What is the Comstock Law?

Back 5

All obsene books pamplets, pictures and other matieral were unmailable.

Front 6

What is the Hicklin rule?

Back 6

A work is obscene if it has a tendency to deprave and corrupt those who minds are open to such immoral influrence and into whose hands it might fall

Front 7

What's the significannce of Roth vs. US

Back 7

Got rid of Hicklin rule. Created Roth test:
- The dominant theme of the material as a whole must appeal to prurient interest in sex

- A court must find that the material is patently offensive because it affronts contempary community standars relating to the descripton or representation of seuxal matters

- Before something can be obscene, it must be utterly without redeeming social value

Front 8

What's the significance of Miller vs California?

Back 8

Replaced the Roth test:

- An average person, applying contempary local community stanrdard, finds that the word taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest

- The workd depicts in a patently offensive way seuxal conduct specifically defind by applicaable state law

- The work in question lacks serious literacy, artistic,, political or scientific value