Jenny Jones Trials: 1996-99

Three days later, after finding a sexually explicit note at his apartment door, Schmitz bought a 12-gauge pump shotgun and ammunition. He went to the mobile home where Amedure lived and shot him twice in the chest. According to what he told a 911 operator just after the killing, he did it because Amedure had humiliated him on national television. In fact, the show never aired, but the damage had been done. Shortly thereafter Schmitz was charged with Amedere's murder.

The sensationalistic and some would say extreme topics covered by Jenny Jones had gotten the show into legal trouble before. This show, like others, was part of a larger phenomenon that people were coming to call "trash TV" or "ambush TV" (labels that such shows obviously resented) since programs of this sort often made unexpected personal revelations about guests during taping. In the wake of the Amedure shooting, public outrage at such tactics grew especially vehement. Now the show and its producers, as well as Schmitz, found themselves targets because of the shooting.

In October 1996, Schmitz went on trial for murder. His defense attorneys argued that his humiliation in front of a live audience, coupled with the mental instability that his medical records revealed, had driven him to commit a crime of passion, rather than a slaying after calm deliberation. If they could convince the jury that this was what had happened, the conviction would be for manslaughter rather than murder. The defense also called Jenny Jones herself to the stand to try to prove that she and the show had deceived Schmitz about Amedure's identity and sex. But these arguments and the efforts to put the show on trial did little to help Schmitz, whom the jury convicted of second-degree murder. The Michigan Court of Appeals later overturned the conviction on a technicality, however, Schmitz soon faced the prospect of a new trial.