As a kid I delivered newspapers (Cleveland News, Cleveland Press) and when I got older I worked 80-hour weeks in a ketchup factory. I spent college summers at a small shop that fabricated big ticket specialty items.
As an adult I’ve mostly kept to two occupations: Journalist and private investigator. The jobs A) require similar skills and attributes, and B) suffer from general mistrust on the part of the public.
People assumed that whether a journalist or an investigator I was at bottom a shyster, a trickster who pretended to be looking for facts but in reality was determined to bend (so-called) truth to fit an agenda.
Over the years as a newspaper reporter I heard a familiar phrase over and over when I tried to pluck words and information out of the mouths of sources: “Oh, you don’t care about the truth, you just want to sell newspapers!”
And I’d think, “Well no, not really.”
As a criminal defense investigator I heard a different phrase over and over as I tried to pluck words and information from the mouths of potential witnesses: “Oh, you don’t care about the truth, you’re just trying to get him off!”
And I’d think “Well no, not really.” Not even close.
If you drill down to the core mission of a newspaper, it is indeed to sell more newspapers. But the notion I’m trying to con some deputy city manager into voicing a contrary opinion about water department operations so I can squeeze it into the 14th paragraph of a story to appear on page six of tomorrow’s business section, hoping newspapers will magically disappear from sales racks is preposterous. Delusional, really.
And if you get right down to the essence of working in criminal defense, then yes indeed we are trying to get the hapless chump charged with 12 felony counts “off.” But the idea I might con the mother of the victim of several of these unpleasant crimes into making a statement to magically spring my client to freedom is ludicrous, and yes, delusional.
What investigative trickery and treachery might I dream up to get the defendant off? Rewrite police reports and expunge his name? Hypnotize jurors during trial?
In my years reporting and editing for various papers in newsrooms at big city dailies and among a handfuls of staff at modest weeklies, I never once heard fellow journalists or editors slyly suggest that although a story we were contemplating was false and misleading, it would sure sell a ton of copies tomorrow morning. Never.
I never once heard anyone utter a word about just wanting to sell newspapers.
Having spent 34 years doing criminal defense investigations I was never under the impression, much less the command, to follow a course that might ultimately “get (the defendant) off.”
For one, it would be virtually impossible to perform such work. Shall I dangle a pocket watch in front of a witness and suggest in soft, soothing tones that she did not see what she already had repeatedly told the police she had seen?
Plant evidence? Offer the judge a bribe?
Does anyone think I might undertake such illegal skullduggery to spring some criminal I don’t even know? Why?!? I can’t think of a reason either.
Now let’s update this historic mistrust regarding events here in Mendocino County in 2023:
I am certain there is no conspiracy among legal system participants in the ongoing matter of People vs. Kevin Murray. Prosecutors and judges aren’t going to bend the rules, let alone twist them into pretzel shapes, to give a break to a cop accused of assorted misdeeds.
Why would they? Why would an elected District Attorney and elected Superior Court Judge damage reputations and careers to benefit just another defendant?
Some local journalists have suggested high-level dirty dealing is the only explanation for what appears to them as lenient sentencing.
Don’t you believe it. They’re just trying to sell newspapers.
Might need to move up the food chain here. It’s the crooks and liars in high places that appear to often bend the law into the pretzel of their choice. The press, now openly partisan, is not without blame in many cases. That’s human nature. Examples abound.