Free Press and Fair Trial, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights and the Subcommittee on Improvements in Judicial Machinery of the Committee on the judiciary, U.S. Senate. August 17-19, and 20, 1965. During the statement of the Hon. Sam J. Ervin, Jr., Senator Ervin notes: “only 20 months ago President Kennedy was assassinated. The whole world is aware of what transpired that weekend and every person in this country can give you the name of the murderer. Yet no person was ever convicted of that crime, nor tried, nor even indicted. Many people believed then that Oswald could not have had a fair trial anywhere in the country. It would have been a serious indictment of our country if we could not try and punish the murderer of our President. But it would have been a far more serious indictment of our country if a man accused of this crime could not or did not receive the fairest justice that our system affords. When the crime is violent, when the emotions of the community cry out for justice, when there is no doubt in the minds of the press and public that the man accused is guilty, it is then most of all that the press must remember, and it is their duty to see that the community remembers, that the defendant is still innocent in the eyes of the law and will remain so until an unbiased jury decides his guilt solely on the evidence presented in court. Yet, in securing that great ideal, we must not limit the ability of the communications media to play their proper role in our system of government I think these hearings will help us to get a little closer to both objectives. Because of the critical nature of the two rights involved in this issue, the task of all involved in these constitutional rights will not be easy”… This hearing is shelved under Y 4.J 89/2:F 87/3/pt.1 ( 89th Congress, 1st Session).
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