Trial by Headline

CAPTURE CLOSES REIGN OF TERROR! shrieked Texas' Austin American (circ. 34,714) over a story reporting that a 23-year-old soldier from Fort Hood, 70 miles north of Austin, had been charged with rape. Crowed the paper's Page One account: "A textbook case of cooperation between law enforcement agencies." Last week, after whooping up the story for a month, the morning American and its afternoon sister, the Statesman (28,238), provided a textbook case of how publicity-hungry law officers and overeager newspapers can conduct an inflammatory trial by headline.

Austin was awakened to its reign of terror by a hair-raising story in the Sunday American-Statesman headlined: 'BEAST' SEIZES, ASSAULTS GIRL. It reported that a 20-year-old secretary had been "grabbed" on a downtown sidewalk, "forced" into a car, beaten and "assaulted" by a young driver. The paper quoted a deputy sheriff, who linked the crime with the "beast rapist" of a twelve-year-old Austin girl on Christmas Eve. Next day the American credited itself with stirring up an "aroused" public as it reported that police and "an uncounted force of vigilantes" had stopped the rapist's "prison and torture chamber" car and arrested Pfc. Stanley N. Press, a slight (5 ft. 5 in., 130 Ibs.) draftee from Atlantic City.

Valentine Shorts. In the car with the "abductor," reported the story, was another "victim," a woman who told police he had raped her twice after threatening her life. The paper quoted a sheriff's investigator who called Press a "sorry s.o.b.," and helped readers close their minds with such details as a description of the soldier's " 'Valentine' underwear-white shorts with prints of red hearts." Not until the story's 52nd paragraph did the American note the curious fact that the girl in the car had not cried for help when Press pulled into a service station. In describing Press's denial of the rape charge, the report said: "He later became almost cocky, demanding 'his rights'-to see an attorney."

The reign of terror reopened retroactively next day, when a third girl charged that Press had tried to rape her. By this time the American was able to report even more incriminating evidence: among the soldier's belongings police had found "a picture of a nude woman, a stack of 'girlie' magazines, a nudist publication."

But by last week, the reign of terror had proved a train of error. "Victim" No. 2 confessed that she had willingly submitted to Press, and would have gone out with him again "if he had asked me for a date." Then other newsmen-as well as an American staffer-started digging into the case. They unearthed these facts:

P: "Victim" No. 1's original affidavit said that Press "took my hand and took me to his car." She did not charge, as quoted in the American-Statesman, that she had been dragged or beaten.

P: A signed statement by the doctor who examined "Victim" No. 2, had not, as reported by the paper, "confirmed" that she had been raped, instead found only that there was evidence of sexual intercourse. Two bystanders who were described in the paper as having seen "the girl pulled into the car" said that they had seen no such thing.

P: An affidavit by "Victim" No. 3 admitted that she had not protested to the manager of a motel where she had spent a night with the soldier.

Even when the "evidence" exploded District Attorney Les Procter felt under such a "heavy load" imposed by the publicity about the case that he telephoned Executive Editor Charles E. Green and--as Green put it-"wondered what the paper would think." Replied the editor: "Hell, do what's right." At week's end Defendant Press, an accountant by trade had been cleared of any rape charge, but he was in the Fort Hood stockade, still" facing trial on the first girl's charge thai he had forced her into sex acts. On the same day that it reported plans for Press': trial, the Statesman ran a Page One account of a speech by Editor Green arguing "the right of jurors to be informed about details of a crime before the trial.' He also praised the jury system for pro viding a rebuttal to the "facile and super facial" charge of "trial in the newspapers.'

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