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Prejudicial In11uence On Jury Of Newspaper Published During Trial-People V. Purvis, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendant had been paroled after serving four years of a sentence for second degree murder. While on parole, he was tried for another homicide and convicted of murder in the first degree. In separate penalty trials, juries had twice assessed the death sentence, which, on both occasions, had been set aside by the reviewing court. During the third trial, the Sunday newspaper in the local county published a front-page article attacking the leniency of the parole system, attributing the area's high crime rate partly to the recidivist tendencies of parolees, and quoting the county sheriff's opinion that defendant should be …