The Denver Post
Public access to resume in Bryant case
Wednesday, April 28, 2004 -
EAGLE - Following the second day of closed-door hearings in the Kobe Bryant sexual-assault case this week, District Judge Terry Ruckriegle today is scheduled to hold open proceedings over dates to accept a formal plea and to begin the trial.
Pressure on the judge to speed up the case has been been applied by prosecutors, the attorney for Bryant's accuser and the family of the 19-year-old Eagle woman because nearly 10 months have elapsed since the June 30 incident at the upscale Lodge & Spa at Cordillera near Edwards. "For any sexual-assault victim, healing and recovery are of paramount importance. The longer this case drags on, the longer it's going to be before this alleged victim is able to begin her recovery," said Kathie Kramer, spokeswoman for the Rape Awareness and Assistance Project, a nonprofit advocacy organization. Despite such laments and the insistence by defense attorneys that they, too, would like to see a speedy resolution, the hearings on Tuesday continued to focus on the two key issues that already have been the subject of several days of closed arguments: the accuser's sexual history and whether detectives improperly obtained evidence from Bryant. Several witnesses, including a nurse who examines sexual-assault victims, testified Tuesday in the continuation of the "rape-shield" hearing that allows the judge to examine in secret proceedings whether defense attorneys may raise the woman's sexual history in open court. The state rape-shield law generally prohibits such lines of questioning unless the defense can prove its relevance to the case. Some 18 witnesses - including the accuser, her former boyfriends, her college roommate and other acquaintances - have been called to the stand in rape- shield hearings scattered over recent weeks, and court filings indicate that at least one other person, rape expert Jean McAllister, still remains to be heard before Ruckriegle makes a determination.
Click here for an interactive presentation on Kobe Bryant's career.
Click here for an archive of court documents in the People v. Bryant case.
Click here for The Denver Post's graphic on the events of June 30.
Click here for the 9NEWS archive on the case.
Click here for the CourtTV archive on the case.
And by late Tuesday afternoon, Detectives Doug Winters and Daniel Loya of the Eagle County Sheriff's Department returned to the courtroom to testify about the covertly taped interview they conducted with Bryant on July 1 and at what point they informed the Los Angeles Lakers star of his Miranda rights. The defense claims that investigators failed to inform Bryant of his right to remain silent and right to obtain a lawyer before interviewing him and subsequently seizing a blood-stained T-shirt. They also claim the interview was conducted just seven hours after Bryant underwent surgery and was tape-recorded without his knowledge. But police say that because Bryant wasn't in custody and hadn't been arrested, it wasn't necessary to advise him of his Miranda rights, nor did they need to tell him he was being taped under Colorado law. Legal experts say such difficult matters being addressed in the pretrial hearings are critical to the case and naturally take time to consider thoroughly. "This case has a lot of evidentiary issues - more issues than a lot of cases do," said Karen Steinhauser, a former Denver prosecutor and now a professor at the University of Denver school of law. "I don't think anybody has been dragging their feet, and I don't think this case would have been speedier if there had been an entry of a plea." Dan Recht, a Denver defense lawyer, said, "From my experience, serious, complicated cases take time to resolve. And this does not even feel to me like it is moving slowly." |