AMERICAN JUSTICE Too Open?
Fourteen years ago I published an article which asked this question. At that time, two controversial cases were in the news. One resulted in acquittal on all the major charges against the weight of the evidence; the other didn’t even get to court, at least not a criminal court, although later the alleged victim sued the accused successfully for damages.
Today, the same question needs to be answered, is American justice too open? Two cases currently being played out in the public domain are pertinent to that question: the forthcoming murder trials of Karmelo Anthony and Bryan Kohberger.
The Anthony case was discussed here last month but briefly, he is a 17 year old who stabbed another 17 year old through the heart over a triviality. He is currently out on bail after a diversity hire judge lowered his bond from one million dollars to a quarter of a million. In view of his age, one would normally have expected his name to have been suppressed by the mainstream media, but that bird has long flown.
The family raised more than half a million dollars on a fundraising site, money that will be used for his defense and relocating him because of the imaginary death threats they have been receiving. They have also engaged a clown named Dominique Alexander from a race hustling outfit who has attempted to inject race into the case. He appears to be failing with all except those blacks who live in a fantasy world of white supremacist oppressors.
The case has yet to go to a grand jury but Anthony will be tried as an adult. His claim of self-defense is as weak as can be imagined so he can expect at the very least to be convicted of voluntary manslaughter, although most legal pundits who know what they are talking about are nowhere near so optimistic.
If Karmelo Anthony is in deep trouble, Bryan Kohberger’s plight is far worse because he is charged with a quadruple murder and is facing the death penalty. Although it isn’t an open and shut case, the evidence against him is piling up. As the Defense has brought a plethora of motions, all or almost all this evidence is now in the public domain because of the cameras in the Idaho courtroom. There have been some reporting restrictions, the venue has also been changed to avoid local prejudice, but as the whole world can watch these proceedings, that point is moot.
The change of venue also brought a change of judge from Judge Michael Judge to Judge Steven Hippler. Judge was clearly happy to get rid of it but Hippler is a no-nonsense type who has ruled consistently against the Defense applications expressing his displeasure in the typically modest language of the Bench. Some of these applications beggar belief, like excluding DNA evidence and evidence that Kohberger purchased the murder weapon then a replacement for the sheath that was inadvertently left at the crime scene.
While both these cases make compelling viewing for YouTube crime buffs and a few dollars for legal pundits, it would be better for justice if all media coverage of both had been suppressed until trial time or restricted as in Britain and most other countries where criminal justice is based on the English judicial system.
In a similar vein, crime scene photographs and film are regularly released by the authorities, including gruesome images. Although Travis Alexander was murdered by Jodi Arias as recently as 2008, photographs of the crime scene including of his near mummified head have long been available on-line. In England, the relevant files would normally be closed for up to a hundred years. There comes a point at which open justice should defer to the dignity of the victims, not to mention the suffering of their friends and families.