Judge’s Pending Retirement Leads Another Big News Day

Yesterday, in a surprise development for the Wone civil case, Judge Brook Hedge announced her retirement effective December 3, 2010.

As case watchers will recall, there was a change out with the judges in the criminal case.  The swap of judicial calendars earlier this year had Judge Lynn Leibovitz replace Frederick Weisberg.

The defense team fought that switch but in the long run, it seemed to have worked out for them, save for Leibovitz’ dicta.

This news came just hours after other developments in the case.  One regards the Covington and Burling team, and the other involves the Friday, September 10 status hearing.  Details, after the jump.

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Monday Movie Matinee

This installment of the Joe Price Anacostia Dialogue is actually the last thirty minutes of his final hour-long interview during the mid-morning hours after Robert’s murder. 

Reliable reader Gloria helped us out with the time stamps on this and the earlier segment. 

This interview began in the 9:00am hour, well after the so called “Mercedes meeting.”  That sedan summit, according to the prosecution, occurred in Swann Street neighbor’s Scott Hixson’s car while Price and Zaborsky sat, conferred and “got on message” waiting for Ward to emerge from his interrogation and lie detector test.

At four minutes in (on the tape counter) Waid leaves the room and Price sits for the next several minutes, then at 17:43 he takes a phone call from an unidentified person. 

A few minutes later he dials a number, no answer, then knocks on the interrogation room door, no answer. 

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What ‘State of Mind’ Do The Emails Suggest?

Emails, cards, letters, telephone calls.

Through much of the trial (and a fair amount of lead-up to it) we heard repeatedly from prosecutors that these records would reveal important information as to Price, Ward and Zaborsky’s ’state of mind’ around the time of Robert’s murder.  For her part, Judge Leibovitz was sympathetic to the argument.

However at trial, due to a series of stipulations and agreed-to redactions, much of these records were never entered as fact.  The most we heard – and the most Leibovitz in her role as ‘finder of fact’ could consider – were passing references from Glenn Kirschner to a troubled home life: one where Dylan was pulling away from Joe, where Joe was pained by this and looking for options, and Victor seemed all but invisible.

These brief references suggested a family in trouble, looking to find a new way of existing together.  We can now present at least a few extended communications that were only hinted at.

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Breaking: Judge Denies Defendants’ Motion to Seal Filings

Aren’t the Dog Days supposed to be slow news days as well?  Apparently not.

Yesterday, Judge Brook Hedge lifted the seal on the motions regarding the plaintiff’s request to pull the defendants’ Verizon phone and email records.

The defense argued to keep them under a tight lid on privacy grounds but she ruled against.

Hedge cited emails between Price and Ward that were “already in the public domain,” and “…there is a general right of the public to inspect and copy public records.”  Several of these emails had been admitted as evidence at the criminal trial but no one has had a look at them.  Hedge also found that Price’s alt.com profile page was a “published advertisement.”

Unsealed are the four docs that started this skirmish on August 5.  And as seen in the criminal motions, the substance is in the attachments…viewable after the jump.

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Another Day, Another Revelation – UPDATED 12:30pm ET

> Just made available, the public document that accompanied the most recent plaintiff filing, embedded after the jump. 
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 Another document hit the clerk’s office late last week, and despite Judge Brook Hedge’s order that sealed filings be accompanied by a public document, this one has no such companion.  Her language was clear:
“ORDERED that all parties should submit a public record filing discussing in general terms what is contained in the sealed materials such that the public record is complete, whenever a sealed filing is submitted.”

We’ll continue to monitor the Superior Court database to see if anything else turns up.  

While this may not be the seventh sealed document that has been filed regarding the plaintiff’s efforts to subpoena the defendants’ Verizon phone and email records, we can’t let a perfectly good art house film reference go to waste.
 

08/20/2010:  Sealed Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Seal Filed Attorney: RAZI, Mr BENJAMIN J.,  ESTATE OF ROBERT E WONE; Mr BENJAMIN J RAZI (Attorney) on behalf of ESTATE OF ROBERT E WONE (PLAINTIFF); DANIEL M SULEIMAN (Attorney) on behalf of ESTATE OF ROBERT E WONE (PLAINTIFF)
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A Trial Lawyer’s Perspective: The Wone Civil Trial & Shakespeare

Our thanks to regular reader Bruce for today’s guest post.  An attorney himself and noted contrarian on this case and evidence, Bruce talks about what to expect at the civil trial including the lawyerly theatrics.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances;”  -William Shakespeare (from As You Like It)

Most people don’t know that a court trial (like the up-coming civil case by Mrs. Wone against the Swann 3) is very scripted, much like a play. 

Juries usually don’t know this, and we, as outside viewers of the day to day happenings in a trial, aren’t aware of this either.  But the attorneys and the judge know well that what happens at trial is very comparable to theater.

While surprises can and do happen at trials, surprises happen much less often than you might suspect, and they are usually attributable to attorney error or a witness not following his or her attorney’s advice.

A witness breaking down on the stand and yelling “I did it!” is mostly confined to the dramatics presented in TV shows, movies and live theater, not civil jury trials.  Don’t expect that kind of theatrics at the Wone civil trial.

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