Sheppard V. Maxwell

Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 (1966), was a United States Supreme Court case that examined the rights of freedom of the press as outlined in the 1st Amendment when weighed against a defendant's right to a fair trial as required by the 14th Amendment. In particular, the court sought to determine whether or not the defendant was denied fair trial for the second-degree murder of his wife, of which he was convicted, because of the trial judge's failure to protect Sheppard sufficiently from the massive, pervasive, and prejudicial publicity that attended his prosecution.