PUPPY DOE PROTEST RULES SET, TRIAL STARTS MONDAY
The Puppy Doe animal abuse trial, which was due to start today, has been postponed until next week at the request of the defense.
Jury selection in the case will begin Monday, the trial court said without elaborating on the reasons for the defense request.
Meanwhile, Judge Kenneth J. Fishman issued rules for any animal rights protesters who attend the trial, saying they will be barred from wearing buttons, shirts or other insignia inside Dedham Superior Court either expressing affection for the dog or disdain for Polish national Radoslaw Czerkawski, the man accused of torturing her to death in 2013.
Fishman’s decorum order also establishes a buffer zone banning any demonstrations, sign displays or commentary pertaining to Czerkawski from taking place within 500 feet of the courthouse or in the public parking lot behind the Norfolk Registry of Deeds on High Street.
“There have been demonstrations on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse involving the carrying of signs by numerous individuals relating to the defendant during most, if not all of the court proceedings involving the defendant,” Fishman wrote in his two-page decision.
The buffer zone was requested by both prosecutors and Czerkawski’s attorney Larry Tipton. Tipton and Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey’s office both declined comment yesterday.
Deanna Terminiello, director of Pawsitively Puppy Doe, said Fishman has nothing to worry about from her animal rights-education group.
“We’re respecting the judge’s orders. We don’t want to sabotage this case or cause any kind of mistrial,” Terminiello said. “We’ve been here since day one and we’re the people who truly want to see justice done.”
Czerkawski, 36, is already behind bars for stealing $130,000 from a 95-yearold Quincy seamstress he was hired to care for. Janina Stock died at home Aug. 31, 2013, the same day a starved, beaten and grotesquely mutilated Puppy Doe was found abandoned in a nearby park. Czerkawski, who was arrested two months later at a motel in Connecticut, faces a dozen counts of animal cruelty.