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Monday, October 16, 2006

Ind. Courts - Jill behrman trial begins today in Martinsville: secrecy remains an issue

The Indianapolis Star website is reporting this afternoon in a story by Tim Spalding headlined "Shotgun blast killed Jill Behrman" that:

Jill Behrman was killed by a 12-guage shotgun blast to the back of her head, Prosecutor Steve Sonnega told a jury today.

It’s the first time that information — compiled from anthropology and forensic reports — has been released.

Sonnega also told the jury that Myers owned a 12-gauge shotgun and was known to hunt in a remote area called Horseshoe Bend that is west of the site near Paragon where Jill Behrman’s remains were found in March 2003.

Sonnega spent 45 minutes outlining Myers’ connection to Behrman’s death and how Myers allegedly told at least seven people — including his maternal grandmother and aunt — facts about the case and information that only the woman’s killer would know.

According to Sonnega, on June 5, 2000 — a week after Behrman vanished during a morning bike ride — the Bloomington and Indiana University communities were involved in massive search efforts for Jill.

But Myers told his aunt by phone, “They haven’t found a body yet.”

Sonnega told jurors later that Myers’ statement was no coincidence.

“John Myers was talking about a death when everyone else was hoping — hoping that Jill would come home safe.”

From an earlier Star report today:
Morgan County Prosecutor Steve Sonnega told a judge that Jill Behrman's killer played a "cat and mouse" game with police – including once drawing them a map that showed the possible location of her body.

That hand-drawn map - which defendant John R. Myers II crafted during a jail stay in 2002 - was written one year before the remains of the IU student were found in a remote, wooded area of Morgan County.

It's just one of the scores of new details released today as prosecutors try to make their case that Myers killed Behrman, a charge that he has denied.

Earlier today the AP reported on a summary of the state's anticipated evidence unsealed today by Judge Christopher Burnham.

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."

An August 26th ILB entry is headed "Judge denies TV station's request for witness lists in Behrman case". An August 9th ILB entry includes this quote from a report by Abigail Johnson of the Indiana Lawyer: "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."

Yesterday Laura Lane of the Bloomington Hoosier Times reported:

The secrecy that has surrounded the investigation into the killing of Jill Behrman and the arrest of the man police say is responsible is unprecedented, and a threat to the open court process established by the U.S. Constitution.

That's the opinion of several experts who have spent their careers championing America's system of due process and the tenets of a free press.

John R. Myers II, 30, goes on trial Monday in Morgan Superior Court on a charge of murder. Since his indictment this past spring, news reporters who have sought access to what in other criminal cases are public records have been thwarted by a judge who refuses to release documents and who conducts hearings privately in his office.

Morgan Superior Court Judge Christopher Burnham, a lieutenant colonel in the Indiana Air Guard and a former U.S. Marine and Air Force officer, believes he does not have to release court documents that refer to once-secret grand jury information. He will not respond to reporters' requests to explain the in-chambers hearings - or anything else regarding the highly publicized and under-wraps case.

"This whole deal has been one of the strangest things I've ever run into, in 50 years of dealing with media access laws," said Richard Cardwell, who for decades was chief counsel and director of the Hoosier State Press Association. It was Cardwell who ushered Indiana's Open Door Law and Access to Public Records Act through Indiana's legislature.

Cardwell said Burnham's actions in regard to the Myers case are "so far out of the norm, it's frightening."

"We have been operating a couple of hundred years under the idea of an open court system, and we seem to have gotten along fine," Cardwell said. "And it's not just the media that should care when judges start shutting down access to public information. That same right protects the public, too."

On Sept. 6, the Indiana Judicial Center's community relations committee convened a special meeting to address five media access issues. One focused on Burnham's rationale that subject matter that was part of the grand jury proceedings that indicted Myers would not be released to the public - even in the public court file.

Several Indiana judges who sat in on the meeting - in person and by speaker phone - voiced concerns about the Morgan County judge's actions. * * *

[According to] Lucy Dalglish, a media lawyer and executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

"That sounds like something he should not be allowed to get away with," Dalglish said. "Once things move into the public courts, they are public. At this stage, the information the indictment is based on should be public. There is case law that says that."

She acknowledged that judges in high-profile cases have a difficult job.

"Obviously, what he is trying to do is maintain control, but there are only certain things he can do to do that. He should not be having hearings in chambers, and if he is, a court reporter should be making a transcript of what is going on and that should be made available."

She cautioned that judges should be careful when considering closing public access to court proceedings and documents filed in relation to them.

"We have a long-standing tradition in this country, under common law and U.S. Supreme Court precedent, that says the public has a right to be present for criminal trials. And that attaches to the documents and pretrial proceedings," Dalglish said.

She said if a judge finds "an incredible need, a compelling need" to keep information secret, he or she must hold a hearing and make specific findings of fact and give the media and the public a chance to object.

Burnham has not done that.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 16, 2006 03:52 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts