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The
prosecution's case charging three teen agers
with conspiracy to commit first degree murder in an alleged
plot to shoot staff and students at Burlington High School
last November, has unraveled quickly in the face of accusations
of improper police procedure when the teens were taken into
custody.
When I first wrote about the case in journals
last November, I wondered if the newspaper had overreacted
to the announcement of the charges as the nation's press
(from USA Today to Dateline to Inside Edition to the New
York Times) descended on Burlington. We'll consider that
question again after reviewing the disposition of the case.
At 3 p.m. March 9, the last of the three boys was pleading
no contest to lesser charges of recklessly endangering safety.
One of the three went home last Friday, and the other two
remain in custody, pending disposition or sentencing hearings
for all three.
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Motions had been brought by attorneys Patrick Knight, Mark Nielsen
, and David Saldana to suppess evidence in the case. Nielsen and
Saldana argued their cases together in front of Judge Wayne Marik,
with Nielsen finishing first. Knight's motion was never argued
because of the plea agreement.
Burlington police officer Steven D.
Hausner, left, responds to questions from Judge Wayne Marik
Monday March 1, 1999, regarding his interrogation of Jordan
Rose, one of the suspects in the alleged Burlington High School
shooting plot. The videotape was was made by a camera mounted
on the wall of the booking room in which some of the suspects
were interrogated. Photo by Mark Hertzberg (c) 1999 Racine
Journal Times |
Nielsen argued that Burlington police had failed to read
Jordan Rose his Miranda rights before taking him into custody
and questioning him, and lied about what happened that Sunday
afternoon. His version of the events, which contradicted
the testimony of several police officers, seemed bolstered
by a 5 1/2 hour videotape taken by a camera mounted on the
wall of the booking room of the Burlington police department.
It was a camera that the officers may not have been thinking
about, because it is turned on and off by dispatchers, rather
than by the officers. Indeed, the district attorney's office
apparently found out about the tape only a few weeks ago.
Nielsen said that while no one wants to accuse police
of lying, one would be hard-pressed to come to any other
conclusion about the events in question. He theorized that
the police were embarassed, and trying to cover-up their
procedural errors. Assistant district attorney Richard Barta
offered little rebuttal to the arguments.
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Judge Marik began his 90-minute reading of his decision
a few days later by saying that this was not a question
of ruling on the basis of a legal technicality, but, rather
of a ruling that took into consideration some of the most
fundamental rights afforded each citizen, the Miranda rights.
It seemed clear from that point on which direction the ruling
was going, but Nielsen and Barta tried to keep neutral faces.
I kept my camera ready, waiting for Nielsen and Rose to
look at one another and smile, but it didn't happen. There
was no defining visual moment to shoot that afternoon. After
court, when pressed for comment about the ruling, Barta
said that if one talks about a "worse case scenario," this
would be it.
Saldana made some similar arguments to Nielsen's, though
the details and circumstances of the alleged police misconduct
vis a vis his client were different than Jordan's case.
The tone of some of his summation exasperated Barta more
than Nielsen's closing argument, and that led to a photo
that drove home to our readers just how hard the defense
was trying to drill holes into the prosecution's case.
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Judge Wayne Marik reads Tuesday March
2, 1999 from his handwritten notes taken during his review
of a five and a half hour videotape of the police interrogation
of Jordan Rose as he makes his decision granting the defense
motion to suppress evidence from the interrogation of Rose
by Burlington police. Photo by Mark Hertzberg (c) 1999 Racine
Journal Times |
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Assistant District Attorney Richard
Barta shows his exasperation as Chase Robertson's defense
attorney David Saldana makes his closing argument Wednesday
March 3, 1999, in his bid to have Judge Wayne Marik suppress
evidence in the case of three teens arrested in connection
with an alleged Burlington High School shooting plot. Photo
by Mark Hertzberg (c) 1999 Racine Journal Times |
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Barta put his head down, and clasped his hands over his head
at one point as he listened to Saldana. I took two quick shots.
The photo ran as our lead photo, and on the AP wire, and was the
talk of the courthouse the next day. Barta even called me, telling
me that he cringed when he heard the shutter snap, and had wished
that I hadn't used the photo...but he ordered a print of it. We
coupled it with a photo I took of Saldana shaking his client's
hand after the hearing ended. Barta passed up the chance for a
detailed summation, speaking softly and saying only that the court
knew the state's position, and that Barta was leaving it to the
wisdom of the court to make its ruling. I have never before seen
an attorney look so beaten, tired, and frustrated in court. Saldana's
client was offered the same plea bargain as his co-defendants,
and accepted it just as the judge was about to give his ruling
on the suppression motion.
And so the case which unwittingly thrust Burlington - a community
that people have moved to "get away" from "the big city" and its
perceived problems - into the international media spotlight is
over, pending sentencing. The community has been ripped apart
in many ways by this case. For many people, the city and the alleged
plot are inexorably linked.
Jose Martinez, the principal of the high school and one of the
alleged intended victims of the alleged plot, spoke about the
fear in the community as he asked Judge Stephen Simanek not to
release defendant Kirk Warren to home detention pending his disposition
hearing. Martinez received praise from many people and from The
Journal Times (which gave him one of its five annual New Year's
Day "JT Awards" for the way he handled the pressure of the case).
Some people have angrily denounced the "legal technicality" that
was the basis of Nielsen's successful suppression motion. The
police department has been praised by city officials and citizens
for having taken the alleged conspiracy seriously, in light of
school shootings in other communities.
Other people have said that the Burlington police overreacted,
and that the district attorney's office was caught up in the events
of the case once someone leaked news about it to a Milwaukee television
station which broke the story. One observer noted that while the
district attorney answered questions at a press conference attended
by local and national press after the initial court appearance
for the boys, Barta seemed left to argue a tenuous case all by
himself. Few people will ever know what evidence the state based
its case on. We know there were no weapons obtained by the three
alleged conspirators, and we know that even though one Milwaukee
television station kept showing a graphic of a "hit list," there
was no such document. The alleged plot apparently never moved
beyond talk.
Did The Journal Times get caught
up in a press feeding frenzy or did we fairly accurately report
the facts of the case and the mood of the community? While one
defendant's family told me how highly they thought of our lead
story reporting the first accusations by Nielsen and Saldana alleging
police misconduct, there is no definitive answer to these questions.
Like so many other stories, the answers are as varied as the emotions
of the people reading them.
| Journalism is not an exact science. Sometimes
there is enough lead time before deadline to debate for hours
how to cover and play a story. Sometimes there isn't, and
we are driven by deadline pressure. Sometimes we are driven
by the pressure of competition. As I wrote in November, each
story we run and each decision we make is part of the foundation
on which we build for the future, for the next "Burlington
shooting plot" type of story that comes along. When the next
one comes along, we'll be asking the same questions about
how to play the story that we asked ourselves this time. And,
once again, we'll still be debating the same questions. |
Kelly Ekman of the Professional Services
agency talks to Kirk Warren's family as she holds part of
the electronic monitoring system that will be used by Kirk
at home, after he was released from juvenile detention. This
is the photo related to Warren's release which ran on the
AP wire. Photo by Mark Hertzberg (c) 1999 Racine Journal Times |
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