Wednesday, June 13, 2007 – at 8:04 a.m.
(Court, counsel, parties present)
THE
COURT: People of the State of
MS. LAMP: I am, Your Honor. I do have a preliminary matter.
THE COURT: Yes.
MS. LAMP: Well, the matter that I have is it was my understanding that we had an order of sequestration which as I understood it meant that the witnesses were to not be in here to hear the other testimony of the other parties, and we have, we have some indication that that order has been violated.
THE COURT: Okay. What is the indication?
MS. LAMP: The indication that we have is on one of the horse web sites. It’s Barrel Horse World dot com. It would appear that Billie Joe Cockroft to the best of our ability to tell has been posting what’s been going on in court and posting to the effect that she’s out of the loop, she’s updating apparently what’s going on in court which is fine, except that she indicates she’s a witness, she’s out of the loop, but the non-witness supporters are updating on her on what is happening and that she was provided, yes, the report is quoting, of the seventeen horses trampling Elvis is from MSU—-
THE COURT: Is she a witness?
MS. LAMP: She is, Your Honor.
MR. DUNGAN: She is a witness, Your Honor.
MS. LAMP: And my understanding is, that’s the very issue--
THE COURT: Has she been in the courtroom?
MR. DUNGAN: Not to my knowledge. I don’t know that I’ll know what she looks like until today. I’d ask Jim and Matt who know her well if she’s been in the courtroom.
DEFENDANTS: No. No, she has not at all.
MS. LAMP: But, Your Honor, it’s my understanding that’s the very issue that she’s here to testify about, so if everybody’s going out and saying what everybody is testifying to, I don’t know why we’re bothering with the sequestration order.
THE COURT: Who’s everybody’s going out and talking to?
MS. LAMP: It says here the non-witness supporters. I presume those would be the supporters of the defendants.
THE COURT: Can I stop someone coming in here to go talk to someone?
MS. LAMP: If we have a sequestration order--
THE COURT: If the Cit Pat wants to talk to somebody—-
MS. LAMP: The Cit Pat can talk to somebody, Your Honor--
THE
COURT: Why are they different though?
MS. LAMP: What I understand it is as being different is
that if we have a sequestration order so that other people are not listening to
the testimony of others so that when they come in here their testimony is fresh—-
THE COURT: I understand the purpose of a sequestration order.
MS. LAMP: Okay.
THE COURT: But I’m trying to figure out if someone here goes out and talks to somebody, the witnesses are sequestered, they’re not supposed to talk to each other, you know—-
MS. LAMP: If they’re going out and talking to the witness who they know is sequestered, then I think that’s a violation of the sequestration order.
THE COURT: Well, we sequester witnesses, we don’t sequester public.
MS. LAMP: We do not of course sequester the public, Your Honor, which is why we have plenty of the public here. But if we have people that are here going out and telling people that they know are sequestered information at the very thing that they’re supposed to be testifying to, then why would we bother with the sequestration order unless it’s just a mere formality?
THE COURT: What’s your remedy?
MS. LAMP: I would ask that she not be allowed to testify, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Dungan?
MR. DUNGAN: Your Honor, I don’t think there’s been a violation. I think the request is ridiculous.
THE COURT: She says that they’re talking, someone is going out and talking to witnesses, maybe this, what’s her name, Cockroft?
MR. DUNGAN: Billie Jo Cockroft?
MS. LAMP: Billie Jo Cockroft, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Cockroft person then is disseminating information.
MR. DUNGAN: I have no doubt that there has been a lot of talk about the case. I would also tell the court probably ninety-nine percent of what she is going to testify to is information that has not been set forth by any other witness so far in this case. I mean, if the court wants to I guess include in the order the members of the public shouldn’t talk to any persons who are potential witnesses, then I guess the court should make that clear. But I don’t see that anything’s been--
THE COURT: Can I do that?
MS. LAMP: I don’t think it’s the public’s responsibility--
MR. DUNGAN: I don’t know-—
MS. LAMP: No, I agree with Mr. Dungan.
MR. DUNGAN: If you can’t even do that, then how is there a violation of the sequestration order?
THE COURT: I don’t know.
MR. DUNGAN: I don’t either.
MS. LAMP: Your Honor, I think it’s the, the responsibility of the witness who’s in the hall with the knowledge that they are in fact being sequestered, to not be getting updates as to what people are testifying about on the very issue that they’re supposed to testify about. Otherwise, why do we bother to sequester? What purpose does it serve?
THE COURT: She went out in the hallway. She’s here, she went out in the hallway. I don’t know that they could ever stop the public from doing that.
MS. LAMP: But do you understand my point, Your Honor, why would we bother to sequester the witnesses if we’re putting them out--
THE COURT: But they don’t talk amongst each other and aren’t in the courtroom when someone testifies, and then they testify, hear other people’s testimony.
MR. DUNGAN: I mean, I don’t know that they’re going to find out than what they would find out from watching the news or reading the newspaper.
MS. LAMP: And I’m not sure either, Your Honor, but what I find is if the court ordered the witnesses to be sequestered, I find it a violation of the court’s order. I am not the determining person here obviously, you are, the court, so if you disagree with me, that’s fine.
THE COURT: What’s your order of witnesses? What’s your order? When is she going to testify?
MR. DUNGAN: Probably third if everybody’s here.
THE COURT: All right. We’ll deal with the matter when she comes, when you call her.
MR. DUNGAN: Okay.
THE COURT: Anything further, Miss Lamp?
MS. LAMP: No. Thank you, Your Honor.