Murder Culture and Injustice

L. Hixson Walter

Description

Walter Hixson's pithy narrative account of four sensational murder cases---the Lizzie Borden, Lindbergh baby, Sam Sheppard, and O.J. Simpson trials---offers interesting observations into the greater cultural and political forces that shaped their verdicts. His step-by-step analysis of the details of each case provides not only insight by skillful synthesis of the existing literature but also a solid overview of the events surrounding these four cases, each of which became a national obsession as well as a miscarriage of justice. Taking a fresh look at the criminal justice system and the role of the media in the larger American milieu, Hixson delves into sociocultural impacts of crime that are both thought-provoking and fascinating reading.

Sujets

• Droit et juridique
• True crime

Informations

• Publié par: University of Akron Press
• Date de parution: 25 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781935603238
• Langue: English

Extrait

MURDER, CULTURE, AND INJUSTICE








SERIES ON LAW, POLITICS AND SOCIETY
MURDER, CULTURE, AND INJUSTICE
FOUR SENSATIONAL CASES IN AMERICAN HISTORY
WALTER L. HIXSON

THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON PRESS AKRON, OHIO
Copyright 2001 by Walter L. Hixson
All rights reserved
All inquires and permissions requests should be addressed to the publisher,
The University of Akron Press, Akron, OH 44325-1703
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition 2001
11 10 09 5 4 3
Designed and produced by Kachergis Book Design, Pittsboro, NC
Cover front illustration by Bud Hixson
Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this book as follows:
Hixson, Walter L.
Murder, culture, and injustice : four sensational cases in American
history / by Walter L. Hixson.- 1st. ed.
p. cm. - (Series on law, politics, and society)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-884836-67-1
ePDF 978-1-935603-22-1 ePub 978-1-935603-23-8
1. Murder-United States-Case studies. 2. Murderers-United States-Case studies. 3. Murder victims-United States-Case studies. 4. Celebrities-United States-Case studies. 5. Trials (Murder)-United States-Case studies. 6. Mass media and culture-United States.
I. Title. II. Series.
HV 6529 . H 59 2000
364.15 23 0973-dc21
00-010635
ISBN 978-1-931968-54-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I GENDERED JUSTICE: LIZZIE BORDEN AND VICTORIAN AMERICA
II VENGEANCE: BRUNO RICHARD HAUPTMANN AND THE LINDBERGH BABY KIDNAPPING
III VENDETTA: SAM SHEPPARD AND THE NORTH SHORE NIGHTMARE
IV A HOUSE DIVIDED: RACE AND THE O. J. SIMPSON CASE
V CONCLUSION: SENSATIONAL MURDER AND AMERICAN JUSTICE
CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
T he four murder cases and the subsequent criminal trials analyzed in this book are among the most sensational in American history. As primordial dramas involving murder within or against a socially prominent family, the Lizzie Borden, Lindbergh baby, Sam Sheppard, and O. J. Simpson cases riveted the public.
These murder cases, scattered across a century, were not merely sensational but highly revealing as well. While historians have long recognized the significance of famous political trials, such as the Sacco and Vanzetti case, the Scottsboro boys, or the Chicago Seven, they have paid less attention to sensational murder cases. In fact, however, such cases have a great deal to teach us about American history, culture, and jurisprudence.
These dramas converge at an intersection of crime, law, journalism, and culture. All four cases spurred feverish public interest and saturated media coverage. Each represented-in varying degrees-a miscarriage of justice.
All four cases offer insight into the evolution of the American criminal justice system, the role of the media, and the larger cultural milieu. The four case studies demonstrate how deeply issues such as gender, ethnicity, class, and race influence high-profile judicial proceedings. They underscore the prevalence and implications of police and judicial incompetence. They show us, in short, just how fragile American justice can be, especially in high-profile cases.
The Lizzie Borden case reveals the extent to which patriarchal culture influenced criminal justice in late-Victorian America. In the Lindbergh case, New Jersey officials denied Bruno Richard Hauptmann legal protections and access to the evidence against him-legal rights of criminal defendants that are taken for granted today. The Sheppard case, conducted in a McCarthy-era witch-hunt atmosphere, became a trial by newspaper, ultimately spurring a landmark 1966 U.S. Supreme Court decision. The O. J. Simpson case became a referendum on American race relations, while at the same time calling into question for many the very legitimacy of the U.S. criminal justice system.
The Simpson case, perceived by millions of (mostly white) Americans as an outrageous perversion of justice, was not nearly as anomalous as contemporary observers seemed to believe. The comparative historical analysis offered in this study reveals that the Simpson case was rather typical of celebrity trials. In the Simpson investigation and trial, as in the other three cases analyzed in this book, pressures flowing from overwhelming public attention upset the delicate processes of justice. The actors in the criminal justice system-police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and juries-succumbed in varying degrees to the external pressures that roiled the administration of justice.
Publicity played an enormous role, heightening both the hype and the controversy surrounding all four cases. Sensational media coverage inundated the courtroom proceedings, requiring each trial to be conducted in a carnival-like atmosphere. Popular trials such as the four studied here contain all the features that captivate the public: drama, narrative, rhetoric, and advocacy. Such cases tend to obscure the criminal or legal issues in question, as they provide an opportunity to advance other causes before, during, and after the courtroom proceedings. As Robert Harriman has pointed out in Popular Trials: Rhetoric, Mass Media, and the Law (1990), Trials function in this way as forums for debate, as symbols of larger constellations of belief and action, and as social dramas used to manage emotional responses to troubling situations.
These cases became mesmerizing national dramas because they brought to the surface cultural tensions that transcended the courtroom. The Lizzie Borden case cannot be understood absent consideration of class and gender roles in Victorian America. Similarly, nativism and xenophobia served to condemn Bruno Richard Hauptmann well before his trial began. Dr. Sheppard s fate stemmed from class anxieties and disgraceful journalism in Cleveland. Finally, a long history of arbitrary authority, police violence, and discrimination under the law against African-Americans enabled Simpson s defense team to win his freedom by exploiting popular black perceptions of racial injustice.
Although the verdicts in these cases were issued in a hall of justice, in reality they were decided in the proverbial court of public opinion. In each case community sentiment-American culture writ large-overwhelmed the judicial process. As a result, all four cases represented (to one degree or another) a perversion of the processes of criminal justice. If the history of these murder cases offers any guide, we may conclude that sensational trials almost invariably invoke broad cultural issues that threaten the administration of justice on its own merits.
While these cases offer insight into the history of American culture and jurisprudence, at the same time they tap into the natural human fascination with mystery and evil that lies at the core of public interest in murder narratives. Moreover, these cases are fascinating whodunits-even if, as is usually the case, the answer to that question is clear. One of my purposes is to put to rest some of the alternative theories that proliferate about these four sensational crimes. A few years back, while writing a biography of Charles A. Lindbergh, I thumbed through some of the popular literature on the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby. I was appalled at the prospect that large numbers of people might actually believe some of the fatuous theories about the Lindbergh crime that had found their way into print.
Looking into the Lizzie Borden case, I discovered another collection of schlock literature on those infamous murders. Meanwhile, as a resident of northeast Ohio, I followed with fascination revelations about the Sheppard murder case. And like many Americans, I was captivated by the Simpson trial, with all its implications for race relations and criminal justice administration in the United States.
As a result of the enduring public interest and cultural significance of these cases, all four have secured a place in American history, legend, and folklore. The Borden murders have generated thousands of articles, scores of books, plays, novels, movies, and even an entire journal devoted to Lizzie Borden and the crime. The Lindbergh crime has spurred a large and still growing popular literature as well as movies and documentaries. In the mid-1960s, the Sheppard case inspired the famous television series The Fugitive, starring David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, a physician who escaped prison for a life on the run after being falsely accused of murdering his wife. The Sheppard case was still being litigated in 2000, as the Cleveland physician s son pursued a wrongful imprisonment suit against the State of Ohio. The Simpson case prompted a shelf full of memoirs, legal analyses, reflections on racial injustice, and a spate of television docudramas.
As the stuff of history, legend, and folklore, the Borden, Lindbergh, Sheppard, and Simpson cases will continue to attract public attention and scrutiny. The interpretive history that follows thus enters into a collective national discourse on some of the most sensational crimes of the century.
I n order to make this book more accessible, I have not used footnotes. The critical bibliography at the end of the book addresses the primary and secondary sources upon which my account rests.
Since no one (other than the killers and their victims, of course) was present when these crimes took place, the precise train of events that occurred in each incident will never be known. I do not know exactly how or when the Lindbergh baby was killed, nor what tool (probably a screwdriver, but perhaps a flashlight) Marilyn Sheppard s killer used to subdue her. For the purposes of dramatic effect, however, I have taken the liberty in the first few paragraphs of each case study to exercise my hi