What is the current state of the law in relation to the disclosure of information to the media of the arrest and confession made by the district attorney's office concerning the arrest of a suspect?

In seeking to resolve the issues before us we cannot be blind to the fact that in all too many cases overzealous police and prosecutors far exceed appropriate limits in their release of information to representatives of news media concerning persons under arrest. As we read the relevant decisions, however, it is still the rule that in most cases involving claims of deprivations of due process the courts must require an affirmative showing of identifiable prejudice to the accused as a demonstrable reality, even though in some particular case a procedure employed by the state may involve so great a probability that prejudice will result that it is deemed inherently lacking in due process. (Estes v. State of Texas, 381 U.S. 532, 542--543, 85 S.Ct. 1628, 14 L.Ed.2d 543, 550; Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 352, 86 S.Ct. [253 Cal.App.2d 681] 1507, 16 L.Ed.2d 600, 614.) Whether any accused person has been prejudiced by pretrial publicity emanating from the police or the prosecutor during the prearraignment period to the extent that he has been prevented from having a fair trial by an impartial jury necessarily depends on a careful examination of the facts of the particular case. No court can fairly determine in advance that such pretrial publicity will result in prejudice to the accused in All cases, no matter how much such publicity may be deplored.

People v. Stroble, 36 Cal.2d 615, 226 P.2d 330, is one of many recent cases which will illustrate the point. ⁷ The record in that case showed 'that representatives of the People, prior to the trial, were guilty of flagrant misconduct.' Defendant's claim that he was deprived of a fair trial 'because the trial court did not protect him

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The judgment in Stroble's case was affirmed in Stroble v. State of California (1951) 343 U.S. 181, 72 S.Ct. [253 Cal.App.2d 682] 599, 96 L.Ed.2d 872. With reference to Stroble's claim that the newspaper accounts of his arrest and confession in the district attorney's office were so inflammatory as to make a fair trial in the Los Angeles area impossible, the question before the court was whether such newspaper accounts so 'aroused such prejudice in the community that petitioner's trial was 'fatally infected' with an absence of 'that fundamental fairness essential to the very concept of justice.' Lisenba v. California, 1941, 314 U.S. 219, 236, 62 S.Ct. 280, 290, 86 L.Ed. 166.' (343 U.S. at 191--192, 72 S.Ct. at 604, 96 L.Ed. at 881.) While the court deprecated the action of the district attorney in releasing to the press on the day of the arrest certain details of the confession which was read into evidence at the preliminary hearing four days later, the court said that petitioner 'has not shown how the publication of a portion of that confession four days earlier prejudiced the jury in arriving at their verdict two months thereafter.' (343 U.S. at 193, 72 S.Ct. at 605, 96 L.Ed. at 882.) The court also declined to simply read the newspaper stories published at the time of the arrest and then declare 'that they necessarily deprived him of due process. That we cannot do, at least where, as here, the inflammatory newspaper accounts appeared approximately six weeks before the beginning of petitioner's trial, and there is no affirmative showing that any community prejudice ever existed or in any way affected the deliberation of the jury.' (343 U.S. at 195, 72 S.Ct. at 606, 96 L.Ed. at 883.)