The Case of Dr. Samuel Sheppard
The Fight Goes On
Corrigan's appeals included a 56-page affidavit from Dr. Kirk — newly discovered evidence which justified a new trial, he said. He maintained that 29 of Judge Blythin's rulings were errors, and charged that Coroner Gerber was unfair and biased.
He argued that prejudicial pretrial publicity had made a fair trial impossible and the judge should have granted a change of venue, and that the presence of so many reporters disrupted the trial.
In July, a three-judge panel unanimously denied the appeal. Kirk's report, the ruling said, was not "newly discovered evidence" because his investigation could have been made before the trial.
If Gerber were biased, "cross-examination is the weapon to demonstrate that fact before the jury." It said a change of venue was within the discretion of the judge and noted the defense failed to use all of its peremptory challenges.
And while it deplored the pretrial publicity — as did all the other courts that reviewed the case — it found no evidence that the jury was not fair and impartial.
"The very foundation of the jury system is founded upon the inherent honesty of our citizens in performing courageously such public service without fear or favor," it declared.
In April 1956 the Ohio Supreme Court came to a similar conclusion, though two of the seven justices dissented. Justice Kingsley Taft wrote that the trial "was conducted in the atmosphere of a Roman holiday for the press."
In November the U.S. Supreme Court refused to include the case among the small number of appeals it hears each term. In a rare memorandum opinion on such a ruling, Judge Felix Frankfurter noted Taft's "Roman holiday" remark and observed that denial of Corrigan's appeal "in no way implies that this court approves the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio."
"It means and means only that for one reason or another this case did not commend itself to at least four members of the court as falling within those considerations which should lead this court to exercise its discretion in reviewing a lower court's decision.
In other words, it seemed at least one justice thought Sheppard had gotten a raw deal.
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Corrigan continued to file for writs of habeas corpus on various grounds and continued to lose. Meanwhile, something happened which got little attention at the time.
Eberling taken in 1959
(police photo)
In 1959 a window washer named Richard Eberling was arrested for stealing from customers. Among the things he had in his possession was Marilyn Sheppard's ring. It turned out he had stolen it from Marilyn's sister-in-law, to whom it had been given after her death. But when police questioned him, Eberling volunteered further information.
He had, he said, washed Sam and Marilyn's windows days before the murder. In doing so, he cut his finger and he dripped blood down the stairs to the basement, where he washed the wound.
Bay Village police took his statement to John T. Corrigan, the county prosecutor. He showed little interest. Chief Eaton called it to the attention of Gerber, who said he would arrange to have Eberling take a lie test but then changed his mind. That was the last heard of the incident — until 30 years later.
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Meanwhile, two books talked about the Sheppard case. In 1956 Louis B. Seltzer, editor of the Cleveland Press, published his autobiography, The Years Were Good
Seltzer was known as "Mr. Cleveland." He had become editor in 1929 and made the paper, in the opinion of thousands of Clevelanders, champion of the underdog. His capacity for moral indignation led the Press to undertake crusade after crusade, and his talent for hard-hitting editorials made the Press endorsement the key to winning elections in Cleveland. Few Clevelanders were neutral about him; they loved or hated him.
In his book he gave his reasons why the Press on July 20 ran a Page One editorial, "Somebody Is Getting Away With Murder," the first of the series. "It was a calculated risk,'" he wrote, "a hazard of the kind which I believed a newspaper sometimes in the interest of law and order and the community's ultimate safety must take.
"I was convinced that a conspiracy existed to defeat the ends of justice, and that it would affect adversely the whole law-enforcement machinery of the county if it were permitted to succeed. Because I did not want anyone else on the Press staff to take the risk, I wrote the editorial myself.
"There were risks both ways. One represented a risk to the community. The other represented a risk to the Press. We chose the risk to ourselves. As editor of the Press I would do the same thing over again under the same circumstances."
In 1961, seven years after the trial, Paul Holmes published The Sheppard Murder Case. The first two thirds were a balanced account of the trial. In the last third, he expressed his own opinions.
Holmes had not been in Cleveland in the months before the trial. But he recounted how when he arrived the cab driver who took him to the courthouse said, "So you're here for the trial. There's a guy who ought to get the chair if ever there was one. He's guilty as hell and everyone knows it."
Local reporters were also convinced of Sheppard's guilt. Holmes' opinion, after covering the trial and later reading Dr. Kirk's report, was that "Sam Sheppard did not — could not have — killed his wife." Sheppard was, he concluded, the victim of "a vicious, all-permeating propaganda buildup against Sam and his family."
His final verdict: "I saw it all, and for what it is worth I think the whole business robbed luster from American jurisprudence, and is, in its most literal and reverent sense, a God-damned shame."
He expressed one other opinion, a bitter one after describing the Court of Appeals ruling of the conviction. "So Judge Blythin did not abuse his discretion or commit prejudice, and Dr. Kirk will never be given a chance to interpret before a jury his scientific evidence," he wrote bitterly.
He was wrong.