Court transparency

Immediately after the closed hearing, Spencer denied a request from the Pilot and Daily Press for a transcript. She issued a public order saying she “denies the commonwealth’s motion to revoke the defendant’s bond,” adding that Pearson must refrain from alcohol and submit to weekly and random alcohol and drug screening.

In its October 2022 ruling, the Virginia Supreme Court said the reasons Spencer cited for barring public access to the hearing — such as a mere possibility that the pandemic could make it difficult to seat a jury — were inadequate. It was the first time the high court ruled specifically on a challenge to a bond hearing’s closure.

“Except in the rarest of circumstances, (a decision on bond) ... must be made in open court so that the public ... would know how and why, not simply what, the court has ruled,” Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote in a 28-page unanimous opinion.

Another 450 pages of sealed documents from the court file are still in dispute. That includes about 91 pages for the prosecution’s motion to revoke Pearson’s bond and the related police internal affairs documents. It also includes about 350 pages of sealed documents pertaining to a separate legal issue unrelated to the bond hearing.

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for April 24.

Clancy declined last week to talk about the closed April 2021 bond hearing — and said Pearson, now at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail, would have no comment. The officer’s manslaughter conviction is under appeal, the lawyer said.

Pearson’s father, Troy Pearson, declined to talk about the personnel issues, but said his son’s prosecution on the 2019 charges resulted in lost contributions to society “from a caring and generous man.”

His son, he said, was active in his church and has always tried to help those in need, including fixing broken cars for the elderly, buying gifts for “those without,” and “using his money to help save a dog found hit on the road.”

The officer was shot at while on duty, his father said, and once climbed onto a burning roof to rescue three people, two of whom survived.

“That’s what he’s done for this community,” the elder Pearson said. “He’s not the monster they’re making him out to be. The kid gives the shirt off his back to everybody.”