In an interview with Metro, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford said the band was able to debunk the use of subliminal messages with the help of “Ol’ Blue Eyes,” saying: “I said to the guys, ‘Let’s prove them wrong.’ We got some Frank Sinatra albums, played them backwards in the hotel, and these unusual messages started appearing. One was, ‘I gave her a peppermint.’ It was ludicrous. I played them to the judge, who was a very conservative Mormon, and when he listened, he physically moved.” According to BBC, the band also pointed out that if they were going to use subliminal messages in their music, they wouldn’t tell kids to kill themselves, they’d tell them to buy more records.

Eventually, the band was exonerated. Following the verdict, Halford said they were relieved but also felt that the ruling still “left the door open to some extent” (per Rolling Stone). In Timothy E. Moore’s article on the trial for Skeptical Inquirer, he said the prosecution had to prove: “1. An inaudible (but technically identifiable) ‘message’ was physically present on the recording. 2. The message was deliberately placed there. 3. The message was subliminal. 4. The message contributed to the suicides.”

The trial’s judge ruled out the fourth proposition but determined that there were subliminal messages on the record, stating, “… the ‘Do It’s’ on the record were subliminal because they were only discernible after their location had been identified and after the sounds were isolated and amplified. The sounds would not be consciously discernible to the ordinary listener under normal listening conditions.”