While judge sent case along for trial, he criticized evidence

By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
October 22, 2003

Eagle County Judge Frederick Gannett gave Kobe Bryant's prosecutors what they wanted with one hand and slapped them with the other.

The gift was Monday's order sending the case to district court and likely, a trial.

The slap was his tough words about the strength of the evidence offered at Bryant's two-part preliminary hearing to support the charge of forcible sexual assault, a class-three felony.

Gannett said prosecutors presented only "a minimal amount of evidence." And he added, "Almost all of the evidence introduced at the preliminary hearing permits multiple inferences."

Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert could get away with that at the preliminary hearing stage, where a judge is required to view all the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution.

"The standard (prosecutors are required to meet in a preliminary hearing) is nothing," said Denver criminal defense lawyer Lisa Wayne.

Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant said it was a foregone conclusion that the Lakers star would be ordered to stand trial.

"In the context of a preliminary hearing, once the prosecution established that there was a sexual encounter, and established that the complaining witness said it was without consent, the preliminary hearing was over, as far as the prosecution is concerned," Grant said.

Because both sides in the case failed to convince Gannett to close the preliminary hearing, most of the evidence he was asked to consider has been laid out - in sometimes graphic detail - for the public.

Most, but not all.

Testimony concerning Bryant's first statements to investigators - caught on a detective's hidden recording device during initial questioning the night of July 1, and possibly inadmissible at trial - was heard behind closed doors.

But with the evidence that is known to the public, many people - including a slew of defense lawyers offering their commentary on Bryant's case - see trouble ahead for Hurlbert's team.

"It clearly appears from what we've heard in the courtroom, that the physical evidence is going to be beneficial to the defense, and detrimental to the prosecution in this case, and that's pretty surprising," Wayne said.

Grant, who has discussed the Bryant case with Hurlbert, takes issue with Wayne's assessment.

"The prosecution's main evidence in this case has not been heard, and will not be heard, until the complaining witness gets on the stand and tells her story," Grant said.

The Bryant case now is something of a criminalist's Rorschach inkblot test, with virtually every piece of evidence allowing for multiple interpretations.

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