Why Child Murder Defendants Are Named by the Press

By: William B. Ketter When 14-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was accused of double murder in 1874, the press dubbed him the ?Boston Boy Fiend? and prominently published his name in huge headlines.

He was a rare kid killer and few people objected to newspapers identifying him, though public outcry over his death sentence did save young Pomeroy from the hangman?s noose. He died in prison at age 72.

Through the years, however, the press has voluntarily tightened its policy on identifying juveniles accused of major crime, exercising greater caution when it comes to printing the names of minors.

There are exceptions. Children accused of murder remains one of them. The nature of the crime is considered so serious that even pre-teens are commonly identified in the media when the unthinkable happens.

Yet the public is often confused over the authority of the press to name juvenile defendants. They think that because police and court officials can?t do so by law, the press is likewise restrained.

That is not the case. The press is an entity apart from the criminal justice system, and it is free to print the names of juvenile offenders no matter the crime. The fact that it normally identifies them only in the most serious cases is a policy, not a legal, consideration.

That policy is based on the logic that young people deserve a chance to grow up and lead a productive life without being scarred by a criminal act committed during their formative years.

Similar reasoning is behind state laws that constrain legal authorities from releasing the names of juveniles to the press, and close juvenile court proceedings to the public.

But the press can easily obtain the names of juvenile offenders from sources other than the police and the courts. Family, friends and neighbors, for example, often authenticate juvenile identities. Police radio reports also can provide names.

That?s what happened in a 1979 West Virginia murder case that saw the Charleston Daily Mail challenge a state law prohibiting the publication of the name of an accused child killer without the approval of the juvenile court. The U.S. Supreme Court voided the law on the ground it amounted to prior restraint of the press, a practice barred by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Still, identifying the names of juvenile offenders just because you can is an entirely different matter. That decision is usually based on the intrinsic newsworthiness of the names to the public knowledge of the case as well as the seriousness of the crime.

No crime, of course, is more newsworthy or serious than killing another person. Several states recognize this by automatically transferring cases involving juveniles accused of murder to the adult courts for prosecution.

The defendants are then treated as adults, not minors, and the press is seldom hesitant to name them.

But in at least three recent cases, child murder defendants as young as 8, 11 and 12 were also identified even though judges in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma had not yet determined if the youngsters would be tried as adults.

That?s a tougher call, but under the policy of identifying murder defendants regardless of age, it is one many news organizations make in the interest of fairness and consistency.

You might say Jesse Pomeroy, the ?Boston Boy Fiend,? set the standard 135 years ago -- and it remains in effect to this day.