In the case of Irvin v. Dowd, Warden (1960), Leslie Irvin was convicted for murder in Indiana and sentenced to death. He appealed his conviction on the grounds that pretrial publicity had made it impossible for him to receive a fair trial in Gibson County, where he was tried. The U.S Supreme Court agreed with Irvin's argument, ruling 5-4 that he did not receive a fair trial due to extensive media coverage which influenced public opinion against him before his trial began. The court found that eight out of twelve jurors admitted they thought Irvin was guilty prior to the start of legal proceedings based on their exposure to news reports about his alleged crimes - this demonstrated clear prejudice against him from jury members who were supposed to be impartial under law. Therefore, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial.

In the dissenting opinion for Irvin v. Dowd, Justice Frankfurter argued that the majority's decision to overturn a murder conviction based on pretrial publicity was an overreach of federal judicial power into state court matters. He contended that it is not within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction to determine whether or not a jury has been impartially selected in a state trial unless there is clear evidence of bias or prejudice. In this case, he believed such evidence did not exist and therefore disagreed with the majority’s ruling which granted habeas corpus relief due to alleged juror bias from pretrial publicity. Furthermore, he emphasized that only six out of twelve jurors had formed an opinion about guilt prior to trial and all stated they could set aside their opinions and decide solely on presented evidence during trial proceedings.