By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
June 5, 2004

The judge in Kobe Bryant's sexual assault case threatened the prosecution team with sanctions Friday for its failure to comply with his order concerning further DNA testing in the case.

Chief District Judge Terry Ruckriegle's action comes little more than a week after a pretrial hearing at which Eagle District Attorney Mark Hurlbert earned the judge's ire for missing a deadline on an unrelated matter in the Los Angeles Laker star's case.

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"It certainly appears as though we have a very angry judge," said Dan Recht, past president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.

"I think the judge has had quite enough," said Denver defense lawyer Lisa Wayne, who has defended many sexual assault cases and is following the Bryant case closely.

"I think they're just getting sidetracked or are not paying attention. It's really hard to defend them on this. There really just aren't any excuses."

Bryant prosecutors in early May, upon receiving the notice of results that the defense obtained in its own DNA testing, announced to the judge their intention to conduct further DNA testing - and to do so at a private laboratory, instead of at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, where they had obtained their initial results.

At Bryant's most recent pretrial hearing, prosecutor Hurlbert told Judge Ruckriegle that those tests could be completed in five to six weeks - or in 10 days, but at a 50 percent greater cost to taxpayers.

Ruckriegle, in an effort to help both sides meet their stated goal of moving more swiftly toward trial, ordered Hurlbert's team to fast-track the DNA tests.

"Not even having the tests, or the results, makes it impossible for me to predict what a reasonable trial date would be," Ruckriegle said in court that day, May 27.

In the same hearing, Hurlbert said a defense expert could be present for that additional testing.

But on Wednesday, the defense team filed a motion complaining that the prosecution had selected a private laboratory for those tests, where - contrary to a May 10 order by the judge - defense DNA expert Dr. Elizabeth Johnson would not be permitted to observe the process.

In that motion, the defense asked Ruckriegle to force prosecutors to explain why they had not obeyed the judge's order concerning the DNA retesting.

Ruckriegle did just that on Friday. He ordered prosecutors to tell him by Tuesday why they didn't properly comply with his May 27 order and why he should not impose unspecified sanctions.

"That's really a significant order because the defense didn't even ask for sanctions," Recht said. "The judge, on his own, seemingly in his anger, is suggesting sanctions. That's quite unusual. They have an angry judge, one that feels like the prosecution is directly violating one of his explicit orders."

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