State defends gag order in Dippolito case
Issuing a gag order on attorneys in Dalia Dippolito’s upcoming murder solicitation case was a necessary step to ensure lawyers can pick a fair jury for what will be her third trial this summer, state prosecutors said in court records fighting Dippolito’s appeal of the restrictions.
The response from Florida’s Attorney General’s office comes two weeks after Dippolito attorney Greg Rosenfeld asked the 4th District Court of Appeal to throw out Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley ’s recent decision to bar attorneys from making public comments about the case — a move Kelley made after prosecutors requested he either stop Dippolito’s law- yers from talking to reporters or take Dippolito’s California attorney Brian Claypool off the case altogether.
Rosenfeld said Assistant State Attorneys Craig Williams and Laura Burkhart Laurie failed to prove in a March 3 hearing on the gag order that such a drastic measure was warranted and called it a First Amendment violation. He also claimed the gag order was applied unevenly bec ause Kelley a l l owe d B oy n t o n B e a c h police offic ials to keep a video on the department’s YouTube page showing Dippolito crying at what turned out to be a st aged c r ime scene where police led her to believe her then-husband Michael had been killed.
Assistant Attorney General Elba Caridad Martin in a response filed Monday said Kelley in making his ruling correctly considered the “extraordinary level” of statements Claypool in particular has made out of court, including some that almost got him removed from the case last year.
“Pe t i t i o ne r wants t hi s court to view the evidence in a vacuum, only looking at what was presented in the evidentiary hearing,” Martin said of Dippolito, adding: “Unfortunately, this case is not so simple.”
According to court records, Dippolito’s attorneys have three days to respond to Martin’s objection to the appeal.
Jur y s el ec t i on i s s et t o begin June 2 for what will be the third trial in the case surrounding Dippolito’s caughton-camera alleged attempts to have her husband killed by hiring an undercover Boynton Beach police officer she thought was a hit man.
Dippolito’s defense is that her lover-turned informant coerced her into the plot after Boynton Beach police officials pressured him to continue working with them in hopes the crime would make for a good episode of the reality television show “COPS.”
Although a first jury convicted Dippolito of solicitation to commit first-degree murder in 2011 and a judge sentenced her to 20 years in prison that year, she won a new trial in 2014 after an appellate court overturned the case. Kelley was forced to declare a mistrial in Decem- ber after a second jury irreparably split 3-3 on whether she was guilty.
Martin in her appellate response Monday rejected Dippolito’s claims that the gag order was too broad, saying attorneys in the case are still allowed to talk to reporters about procedural matters and court rulings in the case as long as they keep from direct comments about the evidence in the case.
She also noted that Kelley was careful to keep the gag order in effect only until June 2 — the first day of jury selection in Dippolito’s retrial. Kelley noted in his decision to institute the gag order that 70 percent of the 200 prospective jurors in Dippolito’s second trial last year had already heard about the case.