Judge rules against sanctions for newspaper in Strohmeyer case

Bill Gang

Thursday, Nov. 13, 1997 | 10:58 a.m.

District Judge Don Chairez ruled today against a defense motion to sanction the Las Vegas Review-Journal for printing a sealed court document in the Jeremy Strohmeyer murder case.

"It was a bad set of circumstances," Chairez said, referring to the fact that the sealed confession was inadvertently made available to the press. "Nothing is going to happen to the R-J."

On the defense motion to ban cameras from Strohmeyer's trial, Chairez said he would issue a written ruling in about a week.

"I've never had a problem with the media, but I've never had a Court TV case either," Chairez said, not indicating how he will rule.

Although Strohmeyer's attorney, Leslie Abramson, contended that television coverage of trials denies defendants a fair trial, media attorney Kevin Doty noted that O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder charges despite massive television exposure.

"He wasn't deprived of a fair trial," Doty said.

Despite her opposition to cameras in the Strohmeyer trial, Abramson acknowledged she is under contract to serve as a commentator on trials broadcast on the Court TV cable channel.

In court documents filed Wednesday, Abramson contended that courtroom television coverage does little more than feed "the public's insatiable desire for real-life soap operas."

Abramson cited the Louise Woodward shaken-baby trial in Massachusetts as the kind of case that has polarized the public and fomented "highly emotional reaction" capable of adversely affecting a defendant's right to a fair trial.

The Strohmeyer case, she said, "contains factors even more likely to prejudice the ever-willing-to-be-aroused sense of community outrage than the shaking death of an 8-month-old infant in Cambridge could."

Media attorneys countered that televising trials leads to a greater public understanding and confidence in the American judicial system and preserves the public's right to know what is going on in its courtrooms.

"If television coverage of trials really is an educational experience, how come the public keeps flunking the course?" Abramson asked in a brief filled as much with quotable phrases as legal arguments.

"The press has already demonstrated its love of the lurid in its coverage of this case," she said. "We can expect the level of sensationalism to rise to new lows" if television cameras are permitted.

In court documents, Abramson also ripped District Attorney Stewart Bell for deciding to personally prosecute the case in a year when he is running for re-election.

"The spectacle of a public official using the sexual assault and murder of a young child as a campaign event is one to be avoided at all costs," she wrote.

Bell has said he decided early this summer to personally prosecute the case because he has more experience than other attorneys in his office with the psychological defenses expected to be offered in the case.

Strohmeyer, 19, is charged with sexually assaulting and strangling 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson while her father gambled in a Primm casino in the early-morning hours of May 25.

The Los Angeles girl's body was discovered in the women's restroom of the Primm Valley hotel-casino several minutes after Strohmeyer and a teenage friend were seen on a videotape leaving the resort 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Arguing against nationally broadcast coverage by Court TV, Abramson said, "From the perspective of the local economy, it would probably be best if Las Vegas-bound tourists knew little or nothing about the events of this case."

Grand jury testimony from Strohmeyer's 18-year-old friend, David Cash Jr., indicated Strohmeyer and the girl had been playfully throwing wet paper at each other but he became angry and events turned deadly after Iverson threw a small plastic sign at him.

Cash testified that the events occurred after he and Strohmeyer had been served drinks at two of the casinos on the Nevada-California border despite their ages.

The complaint against the Review-Journal stemmed from its decision to print a version of Strohmeyer's confession that had been inadvertently attached to a court motion by the teenager's attorneys.

The confession was one of the documents District Judge Don Chairez had ordered sealed after Strohmeyer was indicted last summer. The judge allowed the erroneously filed document to be pulled from the file and again sealed, but by then the Review-Journal had received a copy.

Abramson said requests that the newspaper not print the document were rejected by Review-Journal editors, who also put the document on the Internet.

The Las Vegas SUN did not print details of the confession.

"We invite this court to fashion an appropriate sanction to the Review-Journal for its knowing interference with the orderly processes of this court and for causing what will undoubtedly be a more expensive and protracted jury selection process," Abramson urged Chairez.

Review-Journal Editor Tom Mitchell could not be reached for comment this morning, but he told his own paper that the defense attorneys "are making a specious argument that somehow, in some unspecified way, Strohmeyer's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial might hypothetically be tainted by the public hearing the truth. Therefore the entire First Amendment right to a free press should be abrogated and the case be handled in secret. What utter hubris."

Although media attorneys stated that broadcasting the Strohmeyer trial on Court TV would benefit Iverson's family in Los Angeles, Abramson countered in her court documents that it would exploit the victim.

"What parent on Earth would want the details of the sexual assault and murder of their little child broadcast on television and discussed ad nauseam by a bunch of professional strangers?" she asked.

The great risk of broadcasting the trial would be the potential for jurors to subject themselves to daily commentary on television programs.

While jurors are instructed not to watch television or read newspapers, "the potential for jury exposure to this opinion-based reporting threatens the integrity of the trial process," Abramson stated.