purple motes

Crime and punishment has featured prominently in the rise of mass media. The first book published in Boston was A Wicked Man's Portion (1675), a sermon that Increase Mather preached at the execution of two men for murder. About this time in England, the Ordinary (minister) of Newgate Prison began publishing accounts of prisoners who were executed. Printed execution sermons in early New England and the Ordinary's Accounts in England became immensely popular news publications.

Broadsides -- single page, highly current news reports -- took news circulation to unprecedented heights. In England in 1849, the hangings of James Bloomfield Rush and of Maria and Frederick Manning each were reported in 2.5 million broadsheets rapidly distributed around the country.[1] That number amounts to about one broadsheet for every four persons ages 15 years old and older in England and Wales about that time.

In England about 1850, a news distributor, an industry veteran with more than twenty years of experience, explained how the business works:

There's nothing beats a stunning good murder, after all. Why there was Rush [James Bloomfield Rush, executed in 1849 for two murders] — I lived on him for a month or more. When I commenced with Rush, I was 14 s. in debt for rent, and in less than fourteen days I astonished the wise men in the east by paying my landlord all I owed him. Since Dan'el Good [executed in 1842 for murdering his lover] there had been little or nothing doing in the murder line — no one could cap him — till Rush turned up a regular trump for us. Why I went down to Norwich expressly to work the execution. I worked my way down there with 'a sorrowful lamentation' of his own composing, which I'd got written by the blind man expressly for the occasion. On the morning of the execution we beat all the regular newspapers out of the field ; for we had the full, true, and particular account down, you see, by our own express [printing shop], and that can beat anything that ever they can publish; for we gets it printed several days afore it comes off [before the execution]; and [I] goes and stands with it right under the drop [the gallows]; and many's the penny I've turned away when I've been asked for an account of the whole business before it happened. So you see, for herly [early] and correct hinformation [information], we can beat the Sun [a London newspaper] — aye, or the moon either, for the matter of that.[2]

Selling news to a mass market has long been a highly competitive business. Focusing on crime and punishment and having a pre-established story have been important competitive tactics. As this news distributor indicates, journalistic integrity has also been an important part of the business. The story should not be sold before the event happens.

The Newseum has recently re-opened. The news organizations that designed and funded the Newseum relocated it from Rosslyn, Virginia (about 4 miles from the U.S. Capitol) to a new, $450 million-dollar building about a half-mile from the U.S. Capitol. Being extremely close to the physical seat of the U.S. government apparently is crucial to news organizations' representation of the history of the news.

The Newseum contains neither a gallows, gibbet, stocks, nor pillory. The Newseum's theater that gives visitors a chance to Be a TV Reporter, doesn't put them in front of a bleeding body (Maddy and Tess, when you grow up may you never have to spread news by reading from a teleprompter!) The Newseum fails to report well the importance of crime and punishment in the history of the news.

Notes:

[1] Mayhew, Henry (1851), London Labour and the London Poor (London), vol. I, p. 284.

[2] Id. pp. 223-4.

Illustration Credit: From broadsheet describing trial and execution of Charles Shaw, Richard Tomlinson, and Mary Smith, 1834. Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides. Courtesy of Special Collections Department, Harvard Law School Library.

1 Comment

Ohio is establishing a registry of sex offenders who weren't criminally convicted of sex offenses. The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, reported:

A recently enacted law allows county prosecutors, the state attorney general, or, as a last resort, alleged victims to ask judges to civilly declare someone to be a sex offender even when there has been no criminal verdict or successful lawsuit.

The rules spell out how the untried process would work. It would largely treat a person placed on the civil registry the same way a convicted sex offender is treated under Ohio's so-called Megan's Law.

The person's name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where [the person] could live.

Especially with the Internet, the government declaring a person to be a sex offender is a potent communicative punishment. Most persons consider sex offenders to have committed some of the most vile crimes imaginable. Ohio's electronic sex offender registration and notification system communicates detailed, immediate information about sex offenders' movements to interested parties. "Visitors to the [Ohio sex offender Internet site] can register to have an e-mail message sent directly to them any time a registered sex offender moves within a mile of any specified address."

The political incentives to impose such communicative punishments are relatively strong. The first sex offender registry was established in New Jersey in 1994 (Megan's Law). Within a decade, sex offender registries were established across the U.S.. Such a registery is now under consideration in the U.K. (Sarah's Law). The story of a young girl viciously raped and killed easily attracts public attention. Protecting children is a propitious basis for legislation. Even better, legislation that imposes communicative punishments don't cost much public expenditure. Communicative punishment is much cheaper than imprisonment.

Given these circumstances, communicative punishments merit strict scrutiny for due process. What about "the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury; to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the assistance of counsel in his defense"? Forget about those rights. A declaratory judgment, based on the preponderance of the evidence, is all that is necessary for the government to communicate powerfully that a person has joined the heinous category of sex offenders [see Sec. 2721.21 of the Act].

Ohio's civil communicative punishment of sex offenders seems to have been the product of a sordid deliberative failure. The Blade reported:

The concept was offered by Roman Catholic bishops as an alternative to opening a one-time window for the filing of civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse that occurred as long as 35 years ago.

The Ohio Supreme Court a few months earlier issued a ruling affirming a time limit for filing abuse cases. This matter is more awful than the Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk. It's more awful because priest have in fact awfully abused children. I would guess that was also true in the early nineteenth century. From 1950 to 2002, however, about $650 million has changed hands in judgments against Catholic churches and religious communities concerning sex abuse. This new legal development provides new motivation to address the serious problem of sex abuse. The solution that the Roman Catholic bishops proposed in Ohio shows that the problem concerns everyone.

Protection of civil liberties are central to the rule of law. But perhaps the only deliberative fate worse than being an accused sex offender is being accused of defending accused sex offenders. The Blade reported:

No one in attendance voiced opposition to rules [concerning civil denunciations of a person as a sex offender] submitted by Attorney General Jim Petro's office to the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, consisting of members of the Ohio House and Senate.

In fact, you can find right in the New Jersey State Constitution this text:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution and irrespective of any right or interest in maintaining confidentiality, it shall be lawful for the Legislature to authorize by law the disclosure to the general public of information pertaining to the identity, specific and general whereabouts, physical characteristics and criminal history of persons found to have committed a sex offense. [NJ Constitution, Art. IV, Sec. VII, para. 12, added Dec., 7, 2000]

This text essentially states that the rest of the Constitution does not apply to persons "found to have committed a sex offense." And what does it take to make such a finding? In Ohio, it's a civil declaratory judgment based on preponderance of the evidence. Liberty under law, including liberty from personally damaging government communication, should be more secure than this.

2 Comments