BOOK REVIEW
Trials of the Century:
A Decade-by-Decade look at Ten of
America's Most Sensational Crimes
Abbey Morrow
Counsel on Call
[email protected]
BY AUTHORS MARK M. PHILLIPS AND ARYN PHILLIPS’
calculations, in the last century
there have been at least ten “trials of the century.” The term itself
was coined in the 1900s and has
been recycled in every succeeding
decade. In TRIALS OF THE CENTURY: A DECADE-BY-DECADE
LOOK AT TEN OF AMERICA’S
MOST SENSATIONAL CRIMES
(2016), the father-daughter team
of Phillips and Phillips review the
highest profile criminal cases in
modern American history, including the Lindbergh baby kidnapping,
the Manson Family murders, and
the acquittal of OJ Simpson.
TRIALS OF THE CENTURY is a
thrilling, fast-paced narrative detailing legal proceedings and the
ways in which mass media have kept
pace with the voracious appetite
of the public for news, sometimes
without regard to its veracity. Each
chapter opens with an overview
of the culture and economics of
each decade, as well as the timeline
leading up to the seminal criminal
trial of that era. A large portion of
each chapter addresses the media’s
influence in shaping public perception over the course of each trial.
Although t he authors acknowledge
the press plays a vital role in judicial
oversight, they artfully interlace the
theme that an unrestrained media
can impair due process when the
adjudication of one’s guilt is left to
the press as well as the judiciary.
Throughout the book, Phillips
and Phillips demonstrate myriad
instances of reporters trampling
fresh crime scenes, mishandling
trial exhibits, harassing jurors,
and publishing front page editorials contributing to public unrest. Indeed, the legal world had
learned by the 1960s that pretrial
press coverage could be irreparably
prejudicial, potentially taint the jury
pool, and make an impartial trial
impossible, as the authors discuss
in the case of Sam Sheppard (after
whom The Fugitive television series
and film were based). Collectively,
these events led to the issuance of
restrictive gag orders in the late
twentieth century after decades of
relatively unfettered media access
in the courtroom. Yet today’s press
leaves no stone unturned in our
current era of twenty-four news
and social media, as the authors
note in an epilogue recalling the
Casey Anthony acquittal.
Atlanta jurists will find of particular interest the authors’ retelling
of the local trial of Leo Frank in
1913. Well before the trial, Atlanta’s
rival newspapers definitively named
Frank, a prominent Jewish community leader and manager of the
National Pencil Company, as the
killer of thirteen-year old factory
worker Mary Phagan. Shortly after
his sentence was commuted from
the death penalty to life imprisonment, Frank was lynched by an antiSemitic vigilante mob formed at the
behest of a local newspaper publisher. National protests, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the
founding of the Anti-Defamation
League followed; and the authors
opine that “perhaps no twentieth
century trial had more far-reaching
effects on American society.”
TRIALS OF THE CENTURY is
available for purchase at amazon.
com and at other book retailers.
Author Mark Phillips is a Californiabased attorney, and co-author Aryn
Phillips is an Emory graduate and
behavorial scientist.
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association THE ATLANTA LAWYER
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