Trial By Media: The Risks To Defendants Of Differing US And UK Approaches

On Jan. 4, 2022, a trial that has gripped white-collar crime lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic - that of Elizabeth Holmes - concluded. Following a 15-week trial, jurors in the state of California returned guilty verdicts on four of the 11 counts on the indictment, convicting Holmes of defrauding investors in her company, Theranos Inc.

For British observers, the U.S. trial largely proceeded in a familiar way to an English trial of similar facts. However, one area of striking difference between the two jurisdictions lay not in the law and procedure but in the manner of the media reporting. The American coverage of the trial was elaborate and exhaustive, comprised of detailed newspaper reports on both the pretrial and trial proceedings, as well as podcasts and other analytical long-form journalism. This is a curiosity for English lawyers, who are used to conducting criminal proceedings safe in the knowledge that media coverage will usually be restrained. Indeed,