Judge says he's sorry for posting woman's name in Bryant case

By Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News
July 31, 2004

EAGLE - The trial judge in the Kobe Bryant case on Friday looked straight at the alleged victim's parents from his high bench and offered a profound personal apology for posting the woman's name on a public Web site this week.

Before a courtroom full of reporters, prosecutors, Bryant and his attorneys, a somber Eagle County Judge Terry Ruckriegle said his court had made a mistake and he wanted to express "my sincere apology."

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"For all those who come through these doors, victims and defendants alike, whose names are never known and never sought, I can only assure you that I have learned lessons from these mistakes and that we will give our best human effort not to let it happen again," he said.

Then, looking directly at the 20-year-old woman's parents, who sat in the front row, Ruckriegle said, "Again, I apologize." They both nodded their heads in acknowledgment.

However, not everyone was appeased. John Clune, an attorney for the alleged victim, described Ruckriegle's unusual act as "self-serving."

Clune, who was not at the hearing, said the judge's "generic apology was insulting to the victim and her parents." He said Ruckriegle should have contacted the family personally.

Bryant was quiet during Friday's hearing.

For the second time in less than a year, a state Web site that holds documents from the Bryant case this week mistakenly posted a sealed document that revealed the alleged victim's last name. Last September, the woman's name and home address were posted erroneously.

The sealed document released this week also gave the results from Bryant's rape exam, revealing that a "penile swab" from the basketball star showed only his and the alleged victim's DNA.

Bryant's lawyers want a jury to know that, hoping to bolster their theory that the then-19-year-old woman had sex with "three men in three days," as Bryant lawyer Pamela Mackey said during an explosive preliminary hearing last October.

Bryant's exam did not show the fluids of a third "unknown donor." However, semen - but not Bryant's - was found in the woman's underpants and on her inner thigh at her sexual assault exam just 15 hours after her encounter with Bryant on June 30, 2003.

Pinpoint vaginal injuries the woman claims she suffered could be explained away by the sexual activity, Mackey has said. The alleged victim's attorney has denied she had sex with anyone after Bryant and before her rape exam.

But the jury will now hear the DNA evidence. Both sides agreed to introduce the evidence at Bryant's trial, which starts Aug. 27, and Ruckriegle approved the agreement on Friday.

After quickly dispensing with several issues in a half-hour Friday morning, Ruckriegle surprised the crowd in the courtroom when he said he wanted to offer up his apology before recessing the public portion of the hearing.

He recalled sponsoring classes some years before called "Parenting with Love and Logic," an approach taught by Jim Fay, a popular educator. Ruckriegle said he learned that when children and people make mistakes, they should not be castigated and ridiculed. Mistakes, Fay teaches, are "SLOs: significant learning opportunities," Ruckriegle said.

"It was quite unusual, but this has been an unusual case," said Craig Silverman, a former Denver prosecutor. "It certainly seemed heartfelt. The judge is caught in a tough situation. He hasn't personally made the errors. Members of his staff have."

An anti-violence advocate also commended Ruckriegle's apology, saying it was appropriate. Still, Cynthia Stone of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault said she agrees with the request made by the alleged victim to take down the Web site.

Reporters and others would be inconvenienced by it, but the necessary safeguards are not in place to protect the alleged victim's privacy, she said.

"The technology is too instantaneous," she said. "Too many people have access to it."

Ruckriegle also briefly commended the "responsible media" who have abided by his June 23 order barring them from publishing erroneously e-mailed transcripts of a June 21-22 hearing, another court mistake made that time by a court reporter.

Meanwhile, Ruckriegle, who is under order from both the Colorado and U.S. Supreme Courts to release at least part of those transcripts, said he is "furiously" working at editing them. The final releases should be done on Monday or Tuesday.

Excerpts from the apology:

"I want to express my sincere apology to the people of Eagle County, the people of Colorado, and the people who have come here from far away for the mistake made by the courts this week. . . . Long after all of the people . . . have returned to their own communities, all of us who work for this court and courts around this country will be here . . . to make some of the same decisions based upon the laws and constitutions that we are sworn to uphold. . . . I can only assure you that I have learned lessons from these mistakes, and that we will give our best human effort not to let it happen again."

lowep@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5482

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