August 17, 2004

All systems are go for People vs. Bryant.

Monday's brief open court pretrial hearing, coupled with the release of the Colorado Supreme Court's order declining review of Judge Terry Ruckriegle's controversial "rape shield" law ruling, set the stage for trial to begin as scheduled at the end of this month.

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That is, short of an 11th-hour dismissal.

After several weeks of ill-advised hyping, griping and sniping by the civil lawyers and the parents of Kobe Bryant's accuser - decrying how poorly the woman had been treated by the Colorado judicial system in general and Ruckriegle in particular - prosecutors and defense attorneys wrangled Monday over a few "fine-tuning" details.

The trial can't come too soon, because things are getting entirely out of hand for the young woman and her family.

Prosecutors had asked for a continuance, which generally is not a favorable indicator of trial readiness.

They had reinforced their efforts to delay the trial by asking the Colorado Supreme Court to reverse Ruckriegle's prior ruling that will allow admission at trial of the messy details of other amorous liaisons involving Bryant's accuser in the 72 hours before evidence was obtained from her body and apparel.

If the Supreme Court had agreed, the trial would have delayed indefinitely.

Prosecutors lost that bid for a delay, and now the young woman and her family know definitively that at least three days of her personal life will be international news.

If all that remains is saving face, the time is ripe to dismiss the case, since nothing now stands in the way of the very trial for which the young woman's attorneys and family had been clamoring impatiently.

What has changed?

The alleged victim and her family were rightly outraged that through astonishing technological and human foul-ups, not just her name but also a sensitive hearing transcript providing excruciating details about embarrassing biological evidence found on two separate pairs of her undergarments was disseminated through cyberspace to the media.

Justifiable outrage to be sure, but almost everything they and their attorneys have done since then has been an unmitigated disaster.

Writing a letter to the judge complaining about being "hometowned" in the family's own hometown was not such a great idea. Nor was the suggestion made by the family's local attorney, John Clune, that the judge should have apologized to the parents privately, not in open court, which would have violated the rule against ex parte communications.

But even worse was having her attorneys appear on national TV to complain about how the young woman has been treated. Then later, urging in a court filing that such an attempt to manipulate public opinion on the eve of trial was appropriate, in defiance of what Clune claimed in court pleadings was a "blatantly unconstitutional" gag order.

The inexplicable filing of the civil lawsuit in Denver Federal District Court has compounded these strategic missteps.

Now the young woman can be cross-examined about monetary motivation, with lawsuit papers in hand, and the criminal jury can simply choose to defer to the federal jury the knotty issue of consent.

Prosecutors could not have been pleased by the puzzling timing of the civil suit, which could just as easily and far more intelligently have been filed after the criminal trial, regardless of the verdict.

And while the very human desire to speak out on the beleaguered young woman's behalf is understandable, the fact is that some very bad decisions are now being made for her.

Clune and her other civil lawyer, well-known litigator Lin Wood, are nobody's fools, and it is difficult to believe that these two fine lawyers have made such foolish decisions without considerable client pressure.

So just who is calling the shots, and when will they have the good sense to quit?

Scott Robinson is a Denver trial lawyer specializing in personal injury and criminal defense.

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