Legal Discussion On Speck Case

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31115, 19 July 1966, Page 17

Legal Discussion On Speck Case

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) CHICAGO, July 18. Criminal law experts have disagreed on the propriety of the decision by Chicago police to announce they had identified a man they were convinced was the killer of eight student nurses. One said it would make it very difficult for the man ever to receive a fair trial. But another said that, since the man in question was still at large at the time of the announcement, the information released might aid the public in helping police capture him. The statements were made before the suspect was captured. “No Doubt” The Chicago police superintendent, Mr O. W. Wilson, announced at a news conference on Saturday he had no doubt that an itinerant seaman named Richard Speck, aged 25, was the man who stabbed and strangled the eight girls in their apartment last Thursday. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no question he’s the murderer,” Superintendent Wilson said. Mr Warren Wolfson, a criminal law attorney, said police should have said only that they were seeking Speck in connexion with the killings, and accompanied the announcement only with a physical description of him. “The evidence is for the jury to decide,” he said. “It’s going to be very difficult to get a fair trial for this man unless memories dim or jurors can be obtained who have no knowledge of the case. Both possibilities are unlikely.” “Public Service” However, Professor Fred Inbau, of Northwestern University Law School, said the publicity was “a public service” that might help in capturing the suspect. “It’s a lot of rot to say the press shouldn’t publicise this, and that the public doesn’t

have the right to know,” said Professor Inbau. “This person was still at large. He was not locked up. He was not being readied for trial.” Professor Inbau said police had “some real basis for the identification. “One of the true functions of the news media is to assist in matters of this sort,” he said. "It’s rendering a public service without prejudicing the rights of the accused.”