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Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Ind. Courts - Moves toward secrecy in the Indiana trial court system?
Fortunately, one can still count the recent stories on the fingers of one hand.
An AP story by Ken Kusmer from June 8th reported "The cause and manner of 19-year-old Jill Behrman's death and other autopsy results have been sealed since December 2003 by order of Morgan Superior Court Judge G. Thomas Gray. He refused to change that stance Thursday." See the ILB entry here.
This ILB entry from August 1st reported that Orange Circuit Judge Larry Blanton had finally agreed to requests, including one by the Attorney General, that he unseal the file in a two-month-old lawsuit between companies involved in building the new French Lick casino. The judge had sealed the entire lawsuit, including the docket itself, at the request of the parties to the suit. An enterprising reporter discovered in June that the lawsuit had been filed and noted that the judge could not seal the records without a public hearing.
Today, according to a report by Abigail Johnson of the Indiana Lawyer, pretrial hearings in the Jill Behrman murder trial are being held in closed chambers:
Laura Lane, writer for the Bloomington Herald-Times, reported Tuesday that a pretrial conference in the case of John R. Myers II was over before it was scheduled to begin. Myers' is accused of murder in the May 2000 death of Jill Behrman and is scheduled to go on trial in October.The case is before Morgan Superior Judge Christopher Burhnam; however, Dave Remondini, counsel to the chief justice, is handling media inquiries because of the attention on the case.
At issue is whether certain grand jury testimony concerning Myers' criminal history will be admissible at trial. Indiana Evidence Rule 404(b) is typically used by criminal defendants to seek exclusion of evidence about their own prior bad acts.
"I spoke to Judge Burnham after the hearing," Remondini said. "His reasons for discussing the 404(b) information in chambers with attorneys for both parties was designed to protect the jury pool."
Steve Key, counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association, said he is not certain "protecting the jury pool" is a legitimate reason to close hearings in a case.
"I can understand what the concern is," Key said. "But, there are other ways to try to ensure that you get a good jury. That's why you have voir dire. That's why you have the ability if necessary to pull jurors from other locations, or to take the case and move it to another location."
Key said a jury doesn't need to be totally ignorant of the facts of a case to be able to hear it; even with some prior knowledge of the case, jurors can make decisions based on the evidence presented in the case. Through voir dire, attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense can strike jurors from the pool during voir dire.
"To say that is the reason why there's secrecy in this part of the case, I don't think it's a good reason to close the door," Key said. "Obviously, the public has a right to know what's going on in the criminal system."
The types of information being admitted at trial can have a bearing on the direction of the case, Key said, and now that information is being taken out of play at the public level.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 9, 2006 01:35 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts