MILITARY JUSTICE PERSONNEL: Court Members: Pretrial Publicity
1999
United
States v. Gray, 51
MJ 1 (appellant’s trial was not prejudiced by a saturation of
prejudicial and inflammatory media publicity about the crimes in the
community;
the articles were no more than routine reports of heinous crimes,
investigations,
the arrest of appellant, and the steps taken to bring him to trial in
both
state and military courts which did not create any actual unfairness to
appellant).
(military judge did not abuse his discretion and fail to ensure
appellant
received fair trial in light of pretrial publicity where, although he
rejected
defense-proffered solutions, he did permit extensive
voir dire,
instructed the members not to expose themselves to any particular
information
about the accused, instructed the members to use common sense in
dealing with
media coverage, and twice ruled that the members were impartial in
fact).