Suspects plead not guilty
Cameras will be allowed for pre-trial coverage following Rule 22 approval for WSB-TV’s request.
The opening acts of a death penalty case were drawn out over several hours in Polk County, and the defendants finally ended the day with a pair of defendants entering pleas on their indictments.
Samantha Michelle Roof, 22, and Seth Brandon Spangler, 31, both entered pleas of not guilty on indictments handed down by the grand jury in past months on charges of malice murder, felony murder, felony obstruction of law enforcement officers, aggravated assault and theft by receiving stolen property. Additionally, Spangler was indicted and plead not guilty to a charge of a possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
The two stand accused for the murder of Polk County Police Detective Kristen Hearne and for shooting at Officer David Goodrich while the two officers were investigating a suspicious vehicle on Sept. 29, 2017.
Their plea came last week on March 13 only after Judge Michael Murphy ruled following a long hearing on whether to allow WSB-TV to film the pre-trial proceeding was argued for more than four hours.
Attorney Crystal Bice — one of three from the Georgia Capital Defender office — argued with the help of three different expert witnesses that any further pre-trial coverage would adversely affect the ability to gather a fair jury for the coming trial. Bice argued with the help of private investigator Alex Chilton, statistician Jeffrey Martin and University of South Florida psychology professor Dr. Christine Ruva to provide testimony about the amount of media coverage the case has received in the area, and how that negatively impacts the jury pool before selected.
During testimony, Bice presented two different reports of social media activity gathered by Chilton that totaled 671 pages of posts, comments and more on the shooting death of Polk County Police Department Detective Kristen Hearne.
Chilton was asked to flip randomly through is report, and brought up several examples of coverage put out by WSB-TV in the week following Hearne’s death, three of those alone from WSB reporter Chris Jones’ twitter account.
Martin provided evidence of the statistical analysis of the number of potential viewers that could have seen news reports on the days following from reports placed into evidence provided by Track TV, an Atlanta-based service that records and stores news broadcasts for local stations.
Their report also included numbers questioned by WSBTV on the amount of people who could have watched specific broadcasts following Hearne’s death. The report put that number of a whole area of coverage for Atlanta television news coverage at around 14 million in total for the metro and surrounding area and outside of Georgia as well.
Martin provided testimony estimating that more than 60,000 views of the newscast could have thus potentially been seen in Polk County, even though the total number of the available jury pool for the case is only around 32,000 people.
Additionally, Dr. Ruva added that based on her analysis of more than 200 television news reports, she found them to mainly be emotional and negative mainly toward Spangler during the days and months following Hearne’s death.
Ruva, who provided several articles and talked about her research on juries being biased by news coverage prior to a trial, said that she believed if Polk County residents were further exposed to additional pretrial television coverage of the case, it was likely they’d form opinions about Spangler and Roof before they even got into a courtroom.
“If jurors are exposed to negative pre-trial publicity, they are more likely to convict rather than those jurors who have been unexposed to news coverage,” Ruva said.
However, District Attorney Jack Browning did ask Ruva whether all pre- trial coverage had been negative, reading from articles printed in the Polk County Standard Journal and Rome News-Tribune about the case, and whether that coverage was considered negative.
Ruva did agree it was not, and also admitted when asked she had not discussed the case with anyone in Polk County on a local level, making her opinion one based only on her research, and not from field experience locally.
Bice also sought to tie in a post from the DA’s office Facebook to the case as well, having her witnesses argue that it provided additional bias in the case against the defendants.
WSB attorney Lesli Gaither argued in her closing statement during the hearing over the Rule 22 request the defense hadn’t made their case, and that though the opinions of the expert witnesses were noted they weren’t enough to override past rulings and access to the court by the media, television or otherwise.
Murphy made it clear during his decision following hours of testimony and documents that he was going to allow cameras in during pre-trial motions, but that he was putting stipulations on what he would allow. WSB will be allowed to keep a camera in the back of the courtroom, but any additional news media who wish to have television access to the pre-trial coverage will have to pool their coverage. Murphy also determined where the camera was allowed to setup in the back of the courtroom, and also stipulated no filming was to occur until he was sitting behind the bench, and would end immediately when he rose to end any sessions.
He also called on the media to remember the rules of the justice system do not necessarily apply to them when reporting a story, but he asked for responsible behavior in any news items generated on the case.
Murphy said that though his knowledge of how social media works might be limited as well, he gained a better understanding of how it is impacting the court system during the Tuesday hearing.
“Social media is alive and well, and has the potential to skew cases tried in court all the time,” Murphy said.
He also added that since the crime happened in Polk County, it is in the best interest of the court to hold the trial locally.
“My goal is to try this case in Polk County, but I don’t know if that is possible,” he said.
After making his decision on the Rule 22 request from WSBTV, he added the court would uphold the forthcoming rule change presented by the state supreme court in past weeks ahead of the May 1 implementation date.
The court also completed the arraignment for Roof and Spangler, and set a date for Roof’s attorneys to present arguments and hear rulings on motions previously filed in the case.
Roof and her attorney will be back in court on April 20.