Slap on the wrist? Not exactly.

Many times when news of an alleged crime is reported, readers get upset that the defendant was let off with a “slap on the wrist.” I think part of the confusion stems from people thinking the case has been settled, when all that's happened is a defendant was arraigned and they were released from the court while the case is pending. It's fine to be upset over a defendant's release conditions, but this post is to shed a little more light on the process.

When a person is charged with a crime, even if they confessed it to police, they are presumed innocent until they're convicted. That said, the court can and does place restrictions on people's freedom pending the outcome of their case. These restrictions are called “conditions of release.”

Typically, when I hear about them it's when they are being argued by attorneys before a judge at the defendant's arraignment hearing. The rules about what conditions can be set are fairly nuanced and I'm not going try and get into every little detail, but generally speaking the judge has to use the least restrictive conditions possible to ensure the public's safety and that the defendant does not flee the court's jurisdiction and comes to court on time.

A defendant who violated their conditions can be charged with a misdemeanor crime called “violating conditions of release,” which brings them back into court where the judge can impose stricter conditions.

Conditions of release can be anything from having to check in at a police station a few times a week, or everyday, not driving, drinking alcohol, leaving the county, or having contact with certain people, usually witnesses or alleged victims. Curfews are pretty common, and judges can also bar a person from using the Internet or a cell phone.

In some cases, a judge can order a person held without bail. This usually happens when a crime of violence has been alleged, or the potential maximum sentence is life in prison. Often a person facing such charges will be held until a “weight of the evidence” hearing can be conducted, where attorneys make more involved arguments.

In Vermont, bail can only be set to guard against a person fleeing the court jurisdiction. Judges look at everything from a defendant's appearance record, their ties to other states or countries, and the possible penalties they might face if convicted when setting bail amounts.

Conditions and bail can be modified as the case is pending. Sometimes they get stricter, sometimes they get relaxed.

Contact Keith Whitcomb Jr. at kwhitcomb@benningtonbanner.com or follow him on Twitter @KWhitcombjr

Numbers don't lie, readers read bad news

Heroin is the talk of the town. We can tell because we've got the web traffic data to prove it. Crime has always accounted for the most-read articles on our website. Our page used to have a “most viewed” tab showing the top five articles readers were clicking on. Relatively minor crime items routinely outranked important local issues. We don't have the tab anymore, but from time to time we get these traffic reports which show the same thing.

Even on Facebook, stories on crime get massive amounts of attention in the form of comments.

This looks at the most-viewed articles published to the website between Feb. 23 and March 8. The percentages to the far right are out of the entire New England News Group.

Bennington Banner
Headline	Views	As % of all site views
Local woman charged with reckless endangerment This was article about a woman who allegedly overdosed on heroin while here two young children were in the house alone with her. They called their father, who then called police.	4,196	1.1%
Friday traffic stop leads to arrest of major area heroin supplier The headline sums it up nicely. Police notified us through a press release and we learned more in court a few days later.	3,288	0.9%
Readers react to story about Bennington's heroin problem in the New York Times The New York Times (Kind of a big deal in the news world) wrote an article about Bennington and we wrote an article about local people's reaction.	2,548	0.7%
Police: Recent arrests are a step up, targeting major drug dealers Heroin again!	2,450	0.7%
Coalition reveals extent of debt; officers say they're on track This article was written in April of last year and was popping up on the “most viewed” list for months, even after the tab was removed from our main page and lived as a ghost on our archives page.	1,609	0.4%
UPDATE: Missing teens found Two young women ran away from Bennington School and were later found safe.	1,162	0.3%
Man pleads not guilty to third DUI, charges related to car chase People love car chases.	1,144	0.3%
Police search for missing teens This was about those teens that were later found.	1,101	0.3%
Shaftsbury man accused of spanking children With a belt, and possibly a spatula.	914	0.2%
Crash in Hoosick Falls injures three Car crashes seem to come in clusters. Hopefully there won't be more anytime soon.	870	0.2%

Fun facts:

-My paycheck remains the same whether the news is bad or good, regardless of how many people read it.

-Many of the articles I would use in my portfolio are the ones few people read.

-Writing good news is often just as easy/hard as writing bad news.

Bad news tends to be what people talk about and so we hear about it more. Good news has a bad habit of reaching our ears half an hour before the good-news event is set to take place. The human mind also tends to view the world with a, “Don't fix what ain't broke,” mentality, so when everything is fine and dandy people are quiet but when it hits the fan, that's when people start to chatter.

Readers would look with utter befuddlement at the headline, “Nothing bad happened today. Everything is fine,” if they noticed it at all. A few would quip, “Sounds like an Onion article,” a joke that never gets old and is always funny.

I'm reminded of the audit reports in Pownal before the recent accounting strife there. The auditing firm would take up the better part of a Select Board meeting telling the board the town's books are largely in order with a few things that could be done a little better. “Stop the presses!” I never said to my editor, ever.

Comments and courts

Few things draw out emotions like crime. Mix that with the Internet's ability to remove a person's inhibitions, tact, and sense of shame and you're left with what many media outlets call their “comment section.”

When we at the Banner post an article to our website, you can register for a Disqus account and fire away. We post links to these articles on our Facebook page where you can also leave your thoughts. We don't see much feedback from Twitter.

Some things that are true about the comments under courts and crime articles holds true for anything we post, but since this is a court blog we'll stick to court and cop comments.

First, a history lesson.

When I started working at the Banner the articles on our website would be automatically paired with a link to a “Topix” discussion board. Users posted anonymously and we did our best to keep things civil.

Topix is its own entity and you can still go there to comment on Banner articles, but the reason we switched, to my understanding, is because the Topix board became a howling pit of madness that served no purpose other than to be a nest of cyber bullies who constantly attacked citizens and public figures while hiding behind screen names. These folks enjoyed naming alleged sexual assault victims and insulting high school sports teams. A former colleague of mine described the board as a “car wreck,” and having seen more than a few vehicle crashes I have to agree, the old board resembled a pile of needless destruction that's hard to both look at and look away from.

Our new comment system still lets people post anonymously, thus shielding them from every social mechanism developed to keep people civil, but the added work of having to register with an email seems to make people more polite. Still, I don't find the discussions being had particularly valuable to anyone, aside from maybe the posters themselves who need a place to vent their anger and frustration with the world. We all need that from time to time but would it hurt to offer a constructive opinion now and again? Maybe ask an actual question and not one that's rhetorical? We'll reply if something is unclear or left unstated.

As for Facebook, discussions have been slightly better, but still we have people calling each other names and saying accused drug dealers should be killed via overdose. I'm not going to tell you how to feel, but you live in an age where your ability to spread your opinions far and wide is unparalleled with any other time in history, you should use that ability a little better than you are.

Of course we're somewhat to blame here. Media groups all over have been stumped by these comment sections. When you write us a letter to the editor, you have to put your name and hometown on the letter and provide us with a phone number so we can ensure you are who you say you are. We have no such standard for our website or Facebook page. In many ways, we treat them like gas stations treat their bathrooms. It's standard in the industry to have them, they're great in theory, and we struggle to keep them clean.

And finally, one thing that crops up from time to time is “freedom of speech.”

Here's the First Amendment, quoted from www.webcitation.org

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Notice how it says nothing about a newspaper being required to provide anyone with a medium for expressing their opinions. We can delete comments as we see fit and even ban users when they repeatedly cause problems. 

Contact Keith Whitcomb Jr. at kwhitcomb@benningtonbanner.com or follow him on Twitter @KWhitcombjr.