Friday, October 3, 2014
Good morning:
Due to substantial prejudicial pretrial publicity, Judge Dan Conklin granted a defense motion for a change of venue last week in the Craig Michael Wood case. Wood is charged with kidnapping, raping and murdering 10-year-old Hailey Owens in Springfield, Missouri last February. Prosecuting attorney Dan Patterson has filed a notice that he will seek the death penalty, if the jury convicts him.
Instead of moving the trial out of Springfield, which is in Greene County, Judge Conklin is going to try the case in Springfield with jurors from Platte County, which is just north of Kansas City. The defense and prosecution jointly proposed Platte County and Judge Conklin agreed to their proposal.
Platte County is one of the fastest growing areas in the metropolitan Kansas City area.
As Crane says, he could be tried on Mars with a Moon County jury and the result would be the same.
Ozarks First reports:
Several other motions were discussed at the hearing– all of which pertained to protective orders of evidence. This evidence includes autopsy photos, a purple folder with photos of four middle school students, pornographic writings with names matching two of those students, and child pornography.
“The protective order would restrict the defense to using the evidence only for this trial and only to share with individuals essential to trial preparation. With regard to any experts witnesses that are hired, they’d be informed that they are bound by the same order and they would be restricted from further duplicating or distributing the materials,” said Dan Patterson, Greene County Prosecuting Attorney.
The order would also prohibit Wood from possessing the evidence– permitting him to view it only in the presence of his legal team.
Orders like these are standard operating procedure in high publicity death penalty trials.
Wood has also been ordered to provide a handwriting exemplar to determine whether he can be identified as the author of some hand written pornographic stories that were seized by police when they searched his house.
The Fifth Amendment applies only to testimonial evidence, which is defined as, “Written or oral assertion offered as proof of truth in court. Includes hearsay and testimony.”
Handwriting is not testimonial evidence, so it is not protected by the Fifth Amendment.
He could refuse to supply a handwriting exemplar since a person cannot be physically forced to provide one, but if he does, his refusal would be admissible at trial against him. The wise choice in these circumstances, even if the likely conclusion will be that the defendant wrote the stories, is to provide the exemplar and retain an expert to challenge the scientific basis for graphology, assuming the evidence cannot be excluded by arguing that it is irrelevant or if it’s relevant, its prejudicial value outweighs its probative value.
We know nothing about the content of these stories, except that they allegedly contain child pornography.
If you were the judge, would you allow the jury to read the stories?
What factors would you consider in determining whether to admit or exclude the evidence?
Hints: Evidence rules 401, 402, 403, 404(b) and 702.
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Jonathan Turley has posted that the FBI is planning to quietly drop its fogen investigation.
Wish I’d finish my thoughts before I post. 😦
Turley has opined from the beginning that fogen shouldn’t have been charged, that he was overcharged, that there wouldn’t/shouldn’t be a conviction and that there was no reason for a civil rights investigation.
I disagree with his assessment of the Zimmerman case.
me, too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/george-zimmerman-not-expected-to-face-civil-rights-charges-in-trayvon-martin-death/2014/10/01/4cd2ebd2-498e-11e4-a046-120a8a855cca_story.html
Not surprising, given the passage of time.
I predicted that but of course Turley had a part in achieving it. From the very first, this constitutional powerhouse wanted Fogen to walk. He used his nice lawyery words to cloak the fact that he really didn’t think Fogen should be punished for just offing one insignificant “wannabe thug.” When I saw, for the second time, Turley’s true colors (after seeing them the first time around with his passionate defense of an alleged child molester, while the child protectors were begging for his help for children whose constitutional rights were being flushed down big expensive toilets), I became quite nauseated and that’s when I exited his blog, never to return.
I left, too, but decided to return to speak out. His white privilege, and that of some of his commenters, needs to be called out. Others who also spoke out have gone to a new blog.
I’m hip, Bettykath; you did good work there and thank you.
I couldn’t stomach it. I found myself going into angry (although sometimes eloquent, if I say so myself) ranting monologues in the middle of the night because of public pronouncements by Turley and his Brahmins. Then some dog on his blog said that if a thug like Trayvon was skulking between buildings on his property he wanted the right to “shoot first and ask questions later” and I got into it with an idiot for so long that my adrenalin applied for two weeks’ vacation for time served and I just quit.
Admittedly off-topic, I just thought this video was high-larious so I am posting it here.
“Charge cops a buck or two extra”
If there was ANY other evidence of any sort that the accused had any way of knowing OF or knowing the victim (or having seen her), then I would allow the story that mentions her by name.
I agree. Not all of the stories, just anything that actually references Hailey or a story with a scenario very similar to what was enacted.
He should be convicted for what he did, not because he also looked at kiddy porn. That’s a different charge.
You are correct because evidence of a common scheme or plan is admissible to show identity and intent pursuant to Rule 404(b).
The judge could exclude it, if he decides that its prejudicial value outweighs its probative value, but I think such a ruling is unlikely.
That would be probative of stalking behavior and premeditation. Therefore, it would be admissible.
Moon County……you’re killin’ me…..
I’m pretty much thinking the jury will only be out for, a meal or two. Did he refuse a plea or wasn’t one offered to him……I don’t recall to be honest.
I don’t see anything that say’s he was ever offered a plea deal so maybe not.
Since the prosecution has a strong case, it’s Unlikely they offered to drop the death penalty, if he would plead guilty.
Unless there are unsolved disappearances for which he is responsible and he can tell the police where the bodies are.
That was the situation in the Gary Ridgway case (Green River Killer) and may be the situation in the Hannah Graham case in Charlottesville, VA. She was last seen with Jesse Matthew, 32, a suspect in the disappearances of several other young women.
CNN is reporting,