Gagged and Blindfolded

Gagged and Blindfolded

  11:54 PM    Unknown

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Photo: The Irwin County Courthouse is shown on the afternoon of March 16, 2017.

 Gagged and Blindfolded

After two weeks of near non-stop updates and information in the Tara Grinstead case, some of y'all probably noticed that the last week or so has been much calmer.

A lot of that is due to the gag order that stopped law enforcement officers, defense attorneys, court personnel, members of the victim's families or members of the defendant's families, or even potential witnesses from making extrajudicial statements. No one is talking, so there's not a lot to write about.

The most interesting moment I had was on Monday night, technically Tuesday morning. I had just finished writing all my stories and putting them in the newspaper when… Wait, that's not entirely true.

While I wrote all my stories, I actually forgot to put one in the newspaper. I forgot about Ocilla Community Day, which is a special clean-up day for the city, which will be held from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 25 in the Harvey's parking lot. Since I forgot to put my story in the paper, I said I'd mention it in my blog. So if you're from the Ocilla area and want to help beautify the city, show up! If you're someone from out of the Ocilla area who is just fascinated by the Tara Grinstead case, March 25 would be a good time to come skulk about the streets of Ocilla in snoopy fashion, just make sure to pick up some trash while you're here.

So anyway, Tuesday morning at about 3 a.m. I loaded into my old Nissan, after checking the back-seat for any potential evil-doers. I'm extra cautious after my experience with the ax a few weeks ago.

With the back filled with nothing but Dr. Pepper boxes and empty Burger King cups, I started to drive home. To get home, I travel down an alleyway behind the newspaper office. Part of the alley goes through a bank parking lot.

So, as I drove down this alley at 3 a.m. a vehicle pulled out of the… wait a second.

I should backtrack and tell you that I listened to the latest episode of the Up and Vanished podcast that same night. In it, a guy talks about seeing Ryan Duke, who was charged with Tara's murder, in a black truck.

The reason a black truck could be important is that multiple witnesses reported seeing a black truck near Tara's house on the weekend she disappeared back in 2005.

So, as I drove down this alley at 3 a.m. a black truck pulled out of the bank parking lot and seemed to be blocking the alley, at least momentarily, and in that moment, a scene from an action movie came to life in my poor tormented mind.

I envisioned someone emerging from the cab of the pickup with a shotgun aimed at me as I did a Kurt Russell turn around to look out my back glass like Bruce Willis as I accelerated in reverse and whipped the car around like Sylvester Stallone. Dodging bullets like Jet Li, I would have zig-zagged my way through the alley like a fastly furious Vin Diesel.

Then I would have raced to the sheriff's office and beat on the door like a very scared Dusty Vassey.

But none of that happened. The black truck just eased on past. Probably someone went for a late-night ATM visit, although I don't think I'd want any of whatever he was buying at 3 a.m.

Maybe if the gag order gets lifted, my life will be filled with more mundane excitements, but unfortunately, today, March 16, 2017, it wasn't lifted.

I showed up today at the Irwin County Courthouse with my camera in hand and anxious to see open government in action. I left disappointed and empty-handed, sometime later.

You see, as I approached the courtroom, a bailiff told me they were checking to see if I could have a camera inside. And unfortunately, I could not take my camera inside.

I had forgotten you have to request the use of a camera at superior court events. Only two or three news agencies requested to use a camera, and I wasn't one of them, so I went camera-less, even though I was the only reporter in the room that pays taxes for that room.

I felt gagged and blindfolded.

But it was my own fault, just like the last time I wound up like that.

Kidding.

I won't go into the minutiae of the court proceeding. The gist is this: Judge Melanie Cross will take some time to consider the arguments made, and she plans to have a decision within the week about whether to nullify her own gag order.

This is a bit like having a cook review her own restaurant. Or a reporter write his own review for his own book. Not that I'm impugning the integrity and honesty of judges. Or cooks or reporters for that matter. We're all predominantly honest and integral.

Judge Cross certainly seemed to take the varying arguments into consideration. But she was in a tough situation. It's difficult to imagine having to correct your own judicial decision. And if you do, it's bad enough having to admit you're wrong under any circumstances, but having to do in front of a room full of people and in front of thousands on camera?

Not that I'm saying Judge Cross was wrong.

OK, maybe I am sort of, but only because I disagree with her decision, and what do I know? Next to nothing, that's what.

I'll get into some of the attorney's reasoning in a moment, but my reasoning is a bit more simple. Right now, we don't know if there will even be a trial in which Duke's rights to a fair trial will be needed. But because Duke's rights may be jeopardized possibly somewhere down the road, dozens, maybe even hundreds of people have their first amendment rights taken away from them right now. Among those who have their rights denied to them are the family members of Duke's alleged victim.

That's just simply not right.

Anita Gattis, Tara Grinstead's sister, was one of those who motioned to oppose the gag order.

The attorneys for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other news agencies argued against the gag order on somewhat complex legal grounds. Most of their arguments could be boiled down to these points: 1. A gag order requires evidence of creating prejudice against a client. 2. A high volume of media coverage is not necessarily prejudicial. 3. No evidence was produced to show the media was creating prejudice against Duke before the gag order was put in place, so the gag order should not stand.

Prejudice against Duke seemed to be a cornerstone of the arguments for and against the gag order. Defense attorney John Mobley presented a stack of about 79 different media reports to show the danger of prejudice being created by the media. Well, I can't speak for all of those reports, but if any were my reports about Ryan Duke, they included people saying several nice things about him. Could my report be prejudicing people in Duke's favor?

I wasn't writing to make him sound like a great guy, but people had mostly nice things to say about him. That's the weird thing about the truth. Sometimes it doesn't paint the picture we're expecting. But is it harmful to the defense?

Maybe some of the nice things reported about Duke are why District Attorney Paul Bowden sat at Mobley's table and also expressed support for the gag order. Which he did. Well, what Bowden said was that his office did not oppose the gag order and that he also had an interest in protecting Duke's rights. OK, but…

Seeing a prosecutor and a defense attorney sitting at the same table was strange. It was like watching a cat and mouse happily prepare a cheese-covered chocolate pie in a cake pan. It just looked weird.

But some people I talked to thought it looked worse than weird. They thought it looked suspicious.

You see, last week The Herald-Leader newspaper reported that the district attorneys in Ben Hill and Irwin counties, which includes Bowden, asked for the gag order to control the case information so that jury pools would not be tainted. I was told by multiple people that the defense attorney asked for the gag order, and I even saw copies of a letter or fax to Ocilla Police Chief Billy Hancock from Bowden saying that the defense attorney asked for the gag order.

Which is it?

I spent much of the afternoon talking about the gag order hearing. While a friend tried to say that it is suspicious that the District Attorney would want the information in this case hushed, I lawyered as another type of DA: Devil's Advocate.

I've covered enough trials in Bowden's judicial circuit to know the man is no fan of the press. Once I was told he accused me of "having the streak of the liberal" when I covered one of his cases. One of his assistants is an old friend of mine, and she now treats me as if I have the plague, I suspect because I am considered the enemy in her office.

I argued that it could be that the DA just wants a fair game board when a trial comes, with neither side having an advantage. I argued that he does not want the press affecting the jury in any way. I argued, but I don't think I did any convincing.

Because this afternoon, my other friend was convinced someone was trying to hide something, that it wasn't just about protecting someone's rights to a fair trial. I really don't know. I hope not, obviously.

I don't personally believe the DA is hiding anything. I really don't. But that's what happens when you ere on the side of secrecy.

Suspicion rushes in to fill the vacuum left by secrecy.

Right now we cannot know if anything is being hidden by anyone or not because of this gag order. Anyone who could answer questions cannot answer them so the rumors will mount and continue. In the absence of knowledge, people speculate and gossip.

If there are any things people want to keep from the light of day, my advice to them is to pull back the curtains. The truth is going to come out, and you want to be in control of the story when it does.

I'll give an example. Years ago, I was part of a team covering a story about a local government scandal. The government would never admit what that scandal was, so the story continued for years and resulted in dozens of embarrassing articles. If the government had admitted from the very start what had happened, it would have been at most a story or two. Instead, secrecy led to years of protracted battles and people having their names trampled over and over in the realm of public opinion.

Right now, if there are any secrets in this case, they likely cannot be told, but if there are secrets, get over the hopeless idea that the truth will never be known. Rip off the Band-aid and come forward with the truth at the first possible moment. Hell, ask Judge Cross for special permission to issue a press release.

Because if it's not me, then someone a lot like me is going to find the secret one day. Right now, whenever the story comes to light you have the gag order as a defense. "We wanted to tell you last month, but we couldn't say anything because of the gag order."

But if the gag order expires or is over-turned, and you sit on your secret for weeks or months, people will be far more outraged when they watch it on television, read it in their newspaper or hear it on a podcast.

I'm saying this as friendly advice to any of you with secrets about Tara's case out there. I mean, if there are any secrets at all.