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Show Judge Mclff Changes Venue Of North Star Case To Richfield Judge K.L. Mclff ruled Sept. 13 in favor of the state's prosecutors in granting them a change of venue for the North Star trial from Sixth District Court in Panguitch to Richfield located in the same judicial district. The trial is set to start on Oct. 28. Two owners and five employees of the youth wilderness program are charged with abuse and neglect of a disabled child, 16-year-old Aaron Bacon who died of a perforated ulcer in March 1 994 while enrolled in the program. They are with 3rd degree felonies. Attorney Wallace Lee and Assistant Attorneys General Robert Parrish and Craig Barlow filed in early June for a change of venue to a larger county "such as Utah County or Salt Lake County," claiming that they could not get a fair trial in Garfield County, largely because of news coverage of the events in the North Star case reported by the Garfield County News. In opposing the prosecution request for a change of venue, defense attorneys' claimed that the State of Utah is not on equal footing with criminal defendants in seeking a change of venue. Their claim, however, would not wash with the judge, who wrote in his order, "The Utah Constitutional guaranty is satisfied by a trial within the county or district where the offense is alleged to have been committed." Judge Mclff did not address the defense claim that both sides had received adverse publicity and that media coverage outside Garfield County,- particularly in the Salt Lake Tribune, had been biased toward the state. In their memorandum opposing the change of venue, the defense had said that the Salt Lake Tribune " published the entire diary of Aaron Bacon," much of which will not be permitted in court, and "falsely printed that North Star grossed revenues of $1.5 million annually and was going to be charged with fraud and theft." "I was surprised at the judge's ruling given there has never been a case in the state of Utah where the venue was changed because the government sought it." said defense attorney James Bradshaw on Tuesday, Having addressed the constitutional consti-tutional issue to his satisfaction, the judge turned to the issue of whether a "fair and impartial trial" could be conducted Garfield County. In reaching his decision, to change venue, he cited four criteria. He first contrasted the standing of the victim and the accused in the community. He compared the standing of Aaron Bacon, who was unknown and enrolled in North Star's program because of drug abuse and problems at his Arizona home with the standing of the seven North Star defendants. Judge Mclff wrote that Bacon had a standing "substantially below" that of long-time residents Lance Jaggar, William Henry, Georgette Costigan and Eric Henry. The defendants, he wrote, had skills as Emergency Medical Technicians, experience in operating small businesses, and (Henry and Jaggar) as operators of North Star had provided a substantial number of jobs. He also wrote, "some of these defendants are actively involved in the religious fabric of the community com-munity and have, during the course of these proceedings, received financial finan-cial support therefrom." When Mclff included "those charged with prosecutorial responsibility responsi-bility Lee, Parrish and Barlow, the balance does not appreciably shift," he wrote. "The deference normally shown public officials and the high regard in which they are generally held has been substantially compromised compro-mised by the nature of the publicity appearing in the local newspaper." Mclff secondly considered the size of the community according to the 1990 census, which set the county's population at 3,980 residents resi-dents with 1,321 households. Of these residents, he said 2,553 were over 18 and potential candidates for the jury pool except that the pool is principally derived from the list of registered voters. He cited "multiple defendants some of whom are reasonably well known, and an extensive amount of local publicity favorable to the defendants and highly critical of the prosecutors, blaming them for what will be an excessively burdensome trial at taxpayers' expense" as factors in his decision. He also wrote "the potential of finding an unbiased jury has further been negatively impacted by a continuance of the trial after 85 persons had been summoned for jury duty." He wrote that his judicial knowledge came from having worked directly with the Clerk of the Court in summonsing persons for jury duty. "Moreover," he continued, "the publicity in the local newspaper which came forward at the time the trial was continued was highly critical of the prosecution and was of a nature that does not lend itself well to correction by the Court. This publicity will be difficult for Garfield citizens to disregard." Mclff cited multiple defendants, numerous law enforcement and court personnel, the 85 jurors previously summoned, together with friends, families and close associates of those named "who would have been inclined to focus more precisely on the surrounding publicity " and "zero in on this case to an unusual degree and in a manner beyond what would be expected from routine media exposure" as additional factors. Together, he said, they caused the already small jury pool to "shrink substantially." His third point focused on the nature and gravity of the alleged offense neglect or abuse of a disabled child a third degree felony. He said the nature of the alleged offense (the death of 16-year-old Aaron Bacon while enrolled in North Star's wilderness program) "has generated great public attention and publicity" and "has created such a high level of attention that it could hardly have gone unnoticed by any resident of Garfield County." Mclff acknowledged that publicity in the North Star case had been extensive, "as local as the Garfield County News, and as national as CNN, USA Today, Dateline, Newsweek, and Time Magazine. . The case has also been covered on Leeza, in the Salt Lake Tribune, the St. George and Cedar City Spectrum, the Los Angeles Times, the Arizona Republic, the Las Vegas Review Journal, and others almost none of which has mentioned the issue of the state's hiding evidence. "The Court is less concerned about the general level of exposure than it is about that exposure that is peculiar to Garfield County, and which has drawn into question, not only the wisdom but the honesty and integrity of those charged with prosecutorial duties." At the Garfield County News on Tuesday, publisher Katie Thomas said, "We've printed the truth. Whether other newspapers were afraid to print it, or didn't dig deep enough to find it, or were intimidated by fear of repercussions from public officials, or treated it as simply unimportant, we don't know, but it was available to them, too." "The Court is somewhat less concerned about media accounts of the events which happened in the North Star program during the time the alleged victim was a participant" which will be addressed at trial, Mclff wrote. He said that in contrast, Garfield jurors would be unable to totally disregard the "strong local reporting and editorializing, which has vilified the prosecution, challenging both its judgment and integrity, and opining that the defendants and the Garfield County taxpayers are the victims. . . . One may argue that if the State's case is strong enough it may overcome all the negatives about the prosecutors, but there is a substantial risk that it will not." In his fourth and final point, Judge Mclff addresses the Garfield County News' revealing article about the State's failure to prosecute its own witness, former North Star counselor Mike Hill, for sexual abuse when it had knowledge since October 1994 of the counselor's confession to having sexually abused two boys in the program. The prosecution used Hill as a very significant witness at the preliminary hearing in April 1995 at which the defendants were bound over for trial. The prosecutors and Bob and Sally Bacon, parents of the dead youth who testified at the hearing, all knew about Hill's confession before that hearing. Mclff accuses the News of deliberately deli-berately waiting until immediately before the trial date in April to publish its article when the News had talked to Parrish in February about the Mike Hill incident. In reality, the News did not publish the article earlier because it did not yet have all the facts, since no one at the Washington County Attorney's Attor-ney's office would discuss the material about Hill that Parrish claimed had been turned over to them, and there was nothing in the court files. By April 1996, defense attorney James Bradshaw had filed a motion with the court charging misconduct on the part of the prosecutors. Judge Mclff sealed the motion before it could be made public. The News prevailed in its lawsuit to have the motion opened, and more information was then made public about Hill, confirming what the News had printed. In February, the News had asked Parrish if he had a "deal" with Hill. Parrish denied having any "deal" with Hill, yet the outcome of Hill's appearance in court last week left spectators amazed. Hill had confessed in October 1994 to what could have been charged as a 1st degree felony, was finally charged with a 2nd degree felony almost two years later, only after the News had revealed details about Hill's action, and, before court was over on Sept. 9 after his guilty plea in abeyance, had a promise from Judge David Mower of 36 months (See North Star Trial Venue Changed On Page 2A) North Star Trial Venue Changed T?ittw Pqita 1 I 1UI1I x ugv x probation with all charges to be dismissed at the end of that time. In court, no mention was made of his 17-year-old victim, nor was his victim included in discussion of Hill's plea agreement. In addition to the 2nd degree felony, Hill could also have been charged with the same crime, abuse and neglect of a disabled child, a 3rd degree felony, under which the state is prosecuting the seven North Star defendants. , "Utah law requires that a plea in abeyance agreement has to be in writing and must state the reason it is being entered into," said defense attorney Bradshaw. "Utah law also requires that the victim be notified and consulted about the agreement before it is signed and accepted by the court. My understanding is that neither of these occurred in this case." In his order changing venue, Mclff also accused the Garfield County News of focusing at length on the "tremendous cost to be borne by Garfield taxpayers" writing that the News had said that Garfield County officials had been "skillfully "skill-fully manipulated" by people from the Wasatch Front who were politically motivated to press the trial. On Tuesday, News publisher Thomas said, "The judge did not mention that the Garfield County News opinion "skillfully manipulated, manipu-lated, etc. "was published in an editorial and not as fact. Neither has the News ever published any articles dealing in depth with the financial burden of the North Star case to the county, nor mentioned any specfic costs. However, Garfield Gar-field County Attorney Wallace Lee was quoted at length about the costs of the case and the burden to the county which were made the subject of two lengthy articles in the Salt Lake Tribune along with another article that appeared in the Spectrum. These were not mentioned, men-tioned, however, by the judge in his order," she said. Judge Mclff wrote that he is concerned "of an ongoing risk that a subsequent effort by the Garfield County News might be made to influence the outcome of these proceedings." and wrote that the News has "irretrievably intertwined" inter-twined" the actions of the prosecution prose-cution and the charges against Hill with the North Star case in a way that the guilt or innocence of the defendants was treated as a secondary sec-ondary focus. "The Garfield County News has never addressed the guilt or innocence inno-cence of the defendants," Thomas said. "It has, however, addressed at length the obvious deliberate deception in the case by prosecuting attorneys who hid evidence and failed to see that a confessed sexual abuser was prosecuted in a timely fashion." "If the prosecution received bad publicity," said Bradshaw on Tuesday, Tues-day, "it was because they were hiding evidence. I'm disappointed that, rather than sanctioning the prosecution lawyers, the judge moved the trial to a place where their actions had not been uncovered." uncov-ered." "I'm convinced that we can get a fair trial in Sevier County," Bradshaw Brad-shaw said, "and I still believe that we'll prevail despite the obstacles we've been faced with." |
