Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences for his crimes; on November 28, , he was beaten to death by a fellow prison inmate.
Assault with a deadly weapon and use of excessive force were the charges lodged against four officers, whose attack on King following a high-speed chase was caught on video by a nearby resident and ignited a national conversation on police brutality.
Just two years after its launch, noted journalist and media entrepreneur Steve Brill landed his first big courtroom coup when his Court TV which changed its name to TruTV in broadcast the high-profile trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez, a. The Menendez Brothers. In the end both juries were deadlocked, leading to a second trial in , in which no cameras were allowed.
The second time around, it took only four days for the brothers to be convicted—both on two counts of first-degree murder—and sentenced to life in prison.
Thank you for your love and support. I hope you have a fruitful time here. Law Study Material. What Is Media Trial and Its Famous Cases Media Trial is when various newspapers, magazines, television channels, social media websites interpret facts of a particular case and present them in front of the general public.
You will love them. You may also support with any amount you like. Thank You. Best Books for Judiciary Exam Preparation in Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, spotted him and deemed the hoodie-clad teenager suspicious.
The neighborhood was one known for its fair share of petty crime—with calls to the police between January 1, and February 26, —so Zimmerman, who had a documented history of phoning the police to report suspicious-looking activity, called it in. Little is known about what exactly happened next. The dispatcher instructed Zimmerman to stop following Martin. After the call ended, there was a violent encounter between the two that culminated Zimmerman fatally shooting the year-old, who was just 70 yards from his home.
The proceedings included three weeks of testimony and a litany of expert witnesses for both the prosecution and the defense.
In July of , the all-female jury declared Zimmerman innocent of all charges. You can learn more about the tragic circumstances surrounding this case here. The murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son hijacked the attention of the nation for many reasons. She went missing on Christmas Eve of , was eight months pregnant at the time, her smile was magnetic and her marriage to her husband, Scott, was, by all accounts, picture perfect.
But investigators had their suspicions. Before long, evidence surfaced revealing that Peterson had carried out a number of extramarital affairs while married to Laci, the most recent of which was with a woman named Amber Frey. He was arrested on April 18, After five and a half months of testimony from a whopping witnesses, the final iteration of the jury weighed evidence for just seven hours before declaring Peterson guilty of the murders of his wife and unborn son. He sat unflinchingly as he was sentenced to death for his crimes.
You can learn more about the case here. The Oklahoma City bombing was a tragic event that shook the nation to its core. The media frenzied with coverage of the events surrounding the April act of terror. It was on that fateful day that year-old Gulf War veteran, Timothy McVeigh—with the help of accomplice, Terry Nichols—detonated an enormous truck bomb that was parked in front of the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The explosion killed people , including 19 children, six military personnel, 99 employees of the federal government, eight law enforcement agents and three pregnant women. The attack was quickly labeled an act of domestic terrorism , suspected to have been committed as a reaction to the federal raid of a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas almost exactly two years earlier.
After sifting through 22 days of testimony from witnesses, jurors found McVeigh guilty on all 11 counts of his federal indictment, to which his emotionless response sent chills down the spines of everyone watching. At the end of the trial, Eichmann was found guilty of multiple charges and was sentenced to death. The U. Justice Department charged eight antiwar activists with conspiracy and other federal charges stemming from a violent clash with police at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago [ PDF ].
One defendant, Bobby Seale, had a mistrial, leaving seven defendants who by-and-large knew each other only through their shared objection to the Vietnam War.
The raucous legal proceedings—depicted in the film The Trial of the Chicago 7 , with Sacha Baron Cohen playing the role of Abbie Hoffman —involved Judge Julius Hoffman convicting each defendant and their two attorneys on a total of counts of contempt.
Nevertheless, the jury acquitted all seven of their charges of conspiracy, while five were convicted of traveling across state lines with the intent to riot. Those convictions were reversed during the appeal process. Lifelong criminal and aspiring musician Charles Manson led a cult of devoted followers—known as the Manson Family—in California, and inspired them to commit at least eight murders over the summer of in the hopes of starting an apocalyptic race war. The violent nature of the killings combined with the group's twisted counterculture leanings and hippie looks made for a trial that would puncture a hole in the zeitgeist.
While Manson himself wasn't present during the murders, he had ordered his followers to perpetrate them and was charged accordingly. Their trial became nothing short of a circus. When Manson displayed all sorts of odd behavior during the proceedings, his disciples—both fellow defendants and uncharged Manson family members hanging outside and around the courthouse—followed, be it by shaving their heads or carving Xs into their foreheads.
This is described, in detail, in Helter Skelter :. He landed just a few feet from the bench, falling on one knee. All five defendants were sentenced to death in , though that was reduced to life in prison after California banned the death penalty. Serial killer Ted Bundy was sentenced to death on July 30, , after a much-publicized and televised trial riddled with strange events. Bundy was handsome, intelligent, well-spoken, and charismatic, all things that translated into his trial.
He represented himself, he read Russian literature during slow moments in court, and eventually—days before his execution—confessed to his crimes. Before that, though, he escaped from jail twice and proposed and married his partner in the courtroom.
The trail pulled in massive ratings from viewers who had trouble reconciling that such a charming person could be capable of such evil. Even the gathering of spectators outside his execution in was televised. On August 20, , brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez shot their wealthy parents to death. Over several years, three trials, and countless hours of media footage, the brothers were found guilty. Court TV, a new network in the early s, dedicated itself to turning court cases into virtual sporting events.
Each broadcast of the trial was followed by extensive coverage before and after, with every newscaster drawing their own conclusions about what actually happened.
Most of whom said the brothers killed their parents for the insurance money and inheritances, while the Menendez brothers detailed extensive sexual abuse at the hands of their father.
Today, Lyle and Erik are having a resurgence of popularity on TikTok with videos made from old news coverage. Pamela Smart, a married year-old teacher, carried on an affair with a local teenager named Billy Flynn. On May 1, , Smart came home to find her husband Greggory shot to death. She was arrested in August, with the prosecution arguing that she had coerced Flynn and three of his friends to break into the home and kill her husband. Smart was sentenced to life in prison, and the four boys received lesser sentences.
The media was all over the case, broadcasting all the trials live over previously scheduled programming. Later, there would be a made-for-TV movie, a feature film To Die For , starring Nicole Kidman , and many true crime segments about the case.
Smart still gives interviews, and still maintains her innocence. She told investigators that her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt , had raped her that night. Meanwhile, police located the missing member and brought it to an area hospital, where John Wayne Bobbitt underwent a successful procedure to reattach it. Both Bobbitts were arrested, and during the spectacular trial—broadcast by Court TV—a history of physical and emotional abuse emerged.
John Wayne Bobbitt was acquitted of a sexual assault charge, while Lorena Bobbitt was found not guilty of malicious wounding by reason of insanity stemming from the abuse. Since the sensational event, Lorena Bobbitt has maintained a low profile and has largely avoided publicity, while John Wayne Bobbitt has starred in two adult movies, been arrested on a number of charges, and generally tried to cash in on his unexpected notoriety.
By the time O. Simpson was put on trial for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman—January 24, —cable news was coming into its own. The hour networks made a spectacle of the trial, broadcasting every detail for an obsessed country that couldn't get enough. Very real specifics of the case were treated like plot points from a shared text—the white Bronco, Bruno Magli shoes, the leather glove, Kato Kaelin, and DNA evidence, to name just a small few.
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