Week 3 EOC: Legal Issues With Rolling Stone Article

There are many legal issues following the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, or the Boston Bomber, as he is commonly known. The first is a fear that Dzhokhar might not be able to get a fair trial by a fair and impartial jury of his peers. “A criminal defendant has a right to a trial by jury for any charge that could result in a sentence of six months or longer” (Beatty, Samuelson, and Bredeson, 109). After the article written about him appeared in The Rolling Stones Magazine, there are very few who do not know who is he is. The entire country knew who he was once the news came out that he was named as a suspect, but now, an intimate view of his life leading up to the terrorist act was profiled. Every news outlet in America was covering the Rolling Stones article and the sensationalism of the Boston Bomber appearing on the cover.

Another issue concerning the article is whether or not the reporter exercised negligence in the way he gathered “facts” for the piece. Whether just interviewing his those that intimately know him from only one period in his life, Dzhokhar might have grounds to pursue damages on the basis that the reporter was negligent in his fact finding and that it had caused “the plaintiff…suffered harm that is genuine, not speculative” (Beatty, Samuelson, and Bredeson, 99). He can argue that the article painted him in a negative light which would tie in to the issue of him being able to even get a fair trial because of the press coverage. While this might be very tough to prove, there might be grounds for the argument in favor of Dzhokhar.

On a similar note, there could be grounds to argue a case for defamation. “The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech, a vital freedom that enables us to protect other rights. But that freedom is not absolute. The law of defamation concerns false statements that harm someone's reputation” (Beatty, Samuelson, and Bredeson, 78). Dzhokhar could potentially claim that the article caused irreputable damage to his image tarnishing whatever chance he had at a fair trial. After the amount of press the Rolling Stone article got on its own, there would not be many people who have not read it and would be swayed by the statements of his drug pass and other dealings.