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. 

The cow says, "You can't handle the truth!"

It might be a Vermont thing, but cows get mentioned a lot during local court trials.

The reason for that is the “cows in a field” example that judges often read as part of their instructions to the jury. These instructions come at the end of a trial, after the attorneys have finished their closing arguments and have agreed on the contents of the instructions, which for the most part are the same from trial to trial but can differ depending on elements of the case. They endeavor to make clear to the jury that they are only to consider the evidence presented to them and make a decision based on what the law actually says. The instructions gives some guidance on how to view the evidence, what is and isn't evidence, types of evidence, and so on.

Here's where cows come in.

“Cows in a field” is used to explain the difference between direct evidence and indirect evidence, or circumstantial evidence as it's often called. A photograph of cows in a field is direct evidence that cows were in the field. Pictures of cow tracks in the field is indirect, or circumstantial, evidence that cows were in the field. According to these jury instructions, both types of evidence carry the same weight.

This is just a guess, but cows are used as an example because most court cases don't involve them. They're neutral and if you live in rural New England you've probably seen them before. They're certainly less prejudicial than bruises on a person's face being circumstantial evidence they were punched, or some other awful thing. 

Indirect evidence that cows frequent this field. Also, guess how many photos of "cow tracks" also feature "cow pies."

 

 Direct evidence that cows are in this field.

Shhh! There's a drug sweep going on!

Early Wednesday morning I posted to the Bennington Banner's Facebook page, “Operation County Strike 2 is underway.”

I did this from the back of a police cruiser as the two cops I was with were driving around looking for a suspect. Later I wrote an article giving a full account of my day, but a few minutes after making the Facebook post I noticed someone posted the comment, “Now why would you share this info?”

Following that, “Banner you guys must look at the walls in your office and say, " let's post about the drug sweap,(sic) yeah that's a good idea". Do you ever stop and think?” And following that, from the same person, “And at what point was this post a good idea to display for the drug dealers?”

People have to be forgiven for not knowing how drug sweeps work. I for one knew nothing about them until January when I saw the first Operation County Strike. The Banner kept people up-to-date via Facebook then, too, and over 40 people of the 63 police had on their list were arrested that day. The remainders were picked up later or were already in jail. A handful had left the state beforehand.

Police arrested all 16 of the people they were expecting to arrest on Wednesday, despite the Banner's Facebook updates. In fact, Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette told me a few people turned themselves in who weren't even on the list. The same thing happened in January.

When the cops were going down Pleasant Street asking people if they had seen so-and-so, I had the feeling a lot of text messages were being sent after the police moved on. I'd be willing to bet there had been a great deal of texting once the sweep started, before we posted anything. Give those in the drug trade some credit.

The misconception is that these sweeps are some sort of stealth operation. The fact that police let the media know they're doing them tells me that they're not being viewed that way, and the fact they're arresting the people they're targeting likewise tells me they don't need to be. It could be because the police know who these people are, roughly where to find them, and have gathered all the evidence they feel they need. For at least one suspect, they called the person on their cell phone and basically made an appointment for her to come and be arrested.

Of course, one thing I didn't do was Tweet or post to Facebook where we were, where we were headed, and who the police were after at that moment.

I noticed the same reaction to the DUI checkpoint coverage over the weekend. DUI checkpoints are even less sneaky than drug sweeps. The law requires police to inform the public when they'll be conducted, and the flashing blue lights mean they can be seen from space, so they're not hard to avoid if you're so inclined.

Remote coverage and why search warrants are news.

On Tuesday, I heard federal agents were at Joe Tornabene's Auto Sales & Service in Pownal. How the story played out for the next few days would remind me how nice it is to be within walking distance of the court I usually cover, and how important it is to mind the weather.

I drove down to Pownal to see what was going on, expecting to learn little given how federal agents are. I found them to be quite pleasant, actually. They told me they were from the U.S. Treasury and gave me the phone number for their public information officer (PIO) in Boston.

While I was out of the office, the PIO returned my call and gave the Banner a statement saying that Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents were at Tornabene's in the course of their official duties and they had authorization to do whatever they were doing there by a court.

Not a lot of information, but any time federal agents enter a private business and look through records, it's news. If you feel the IRS should be able to do that with no one watching, I disagree and I'm sorry for you.

Later, I spoke to the PIO directly and she told me which court authorized it. Whatever “it” was.

It was the United State's District Court District of Vermont.

That court has two offices, one in Rutland and the other in Burlington. You can access case files through a web service called Pacer, but only things that have been filed and are public show up.

After the Banner's last experience with search warrants, we came under the impression that a search warrant is public after it's been executed. So, I called the court office to see what I could get.

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. That could mean it doesn't exist, isn't showing up in the system, or for some reason unknown to me isn't public.

The people I spoke to were friendly and helpful, but anytime I've had to call a court or state's attorney's office outside of Bennington, I've felt like it's been more difficult. It's nice to be able to see the person you're asking information from. I feel like they'll go the extra mile for you if they're familiar with you.

Now, the trouble with court being so close to my office is I get a little too brave with the weather. Yesterday the forecast was for severe thunderstorms, and given the weatherman's track record in Bennington I looked at the sky, said “lol whatev,” then took a walk.

Bad move. While I was there the rain stopped fooling around. Our newest reporter, Khynna Kuprian, was kind enough to come give me a ride back, and while we were at court I showed her how to get information from the clerks in the event I'm off or on vacation. The public terminal uses a DOS-like operating system which can baffle the uninitiated.

The Vermont Supreme Court and the Vermont Environmental Court are the other courts the Banner has to follow remotely. They post their decisions online, and the attorneys in question are usually local, but again I feel like it would be better if I could walk in and talk to somebody. Then again, never having been there, maybe it's not so easy.

Changing beats?

With the newsroom losing two reporters in the last month or so, I'm firmly set in “wait and see” mode when it comes to covering courts. I've taken over the Bennington town beat, and until new people get hired I'm doing what I can to cover what I can.

I'm not complaining. For me, the challenging part of the job has always been finding things to write about, so having many beats to cover isn't so bad. What I'm waiting to see is whether or not I can cover both the town and the court and do both justice.

I was told that the town and court beats were once covered by the same person. It makes sense, as stories often overlap. Many times the former Bennington reporter, Neal Goswami, would be following a Bennington story until it went to court where I would pick it up. Most times it's best to have one reporter on a story, but it worked well enough.

The trouble with court is “court time.” One might think a place with a daily schedule of events would be predictable and easy to cover. Just drop in when something interesting is scheduled to happen, talk to who's scheduled to be there, and leave.

Nope.

You have to respect the court clerks and sheriff's deputies who make the place run as well as it does. They're short-staffed, and they manage a lot of people who, because of the situations being dealt with, are low on patience. I've always found the court staff to be as helpful as they can be, but I'm not the highest thing on their list of priorities.

And that means getting the information I need from court often takes a lot of time. Even if I'm covering a hearing where I have the background information and don't need paperwork, that hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. might not happen until 3 p.m., or even 4 p.m. A few times I've waited a few hours for a court hearing only to have it canceled. Stories can fall through on any beat, but most times you know that fairly early and can adjust.

I enjoy covering courts and hope to continue to do it, but if I have to pick between beats, I may lean on the side of change.

Which means I'll have to come up with another blog...I started this court blog with the notion of explaining court things that I couldn't fit into articles. Years ago I tried to get a gardening blog going, but didn't get much support for it (I wonder why?). For me, the trick for reporters and blogging is keeping some sort of distance between you and what you cover. A court blog was fine, because there's a lot that goes into how courts are covered that doesn't have a lot to do directly with the articles themselves.

I cover fish and wildlife, too, but I haven't been hunting in years. There's blog fodder for you, maybe even a series. Who said it was hard finding stuff to write about?

Dirty words and filthy language.

Last week I wrote an article about our local State's Attorney's legal opinion that so-called “happy endings” don't count as prostitution given how Vermont statutes define “prostitution.”

When reporting the news, you have to present to the reader a clear picture if what's being talked about, but that can be difficult when the subject matter is X-rated and your publication is PG-13. In this case, the crux of the story was a specific type of sex act, namely “happy ending massages” as they're called. I had approval to print “hand job” if needed, but I was able to avoid using that phrase. “...contact between one person’s hand and another’s genitals” is what we went with, which makes it pretty clear what's being talked about without being too lewd.

I bring this up because this is not the first time I've been confronted with this problem. A few years ago a teenager was charged in criminal court after he allegedly behaved lewdly in front of a younger child. I can't find a link to the original article, but the alleged act was something of a nature we wouldn't print. I wrote “lewd act” or something similar and left it to the reader's imagination.

And that's the problem I see with being vague. People's imaginations can take “lewd act” to all sorts of places, many I'll bet are worse than what actually was alleged to have happened. I've always felt that some level of specificity, even if disturbing, is better than nebulous suggestions. That said there certainly is a limit to the level of detail that should be provided and that's the kind of thing my colleagues and I discussed Friday afternoon when the “happy ending” article was written.

The problem we ran into with “hand jobs” is there's no polite term for it that really works. You could say “manual stimulation” I suppose. As opposed to automatic stimulation? According to an online dictionary, a secondary definition for masturbation would have fit, but when most people read that word they think of something else entirely.

We've printed “oral sex” in the recent past as part of a series of articles that garnered a lot of feedback from the community, and while I didn't write the bulk of them I did receive a prominent Benningtonian's opinion on our use of the phrase. He didn't care for it. To loosely paraphrase/misquote him, “We all know what prostitution is.”

Do we?

Not guilty!

Last week, or so, I got an email from a guy's mother telling me her son, who had been tried for domestic assault, was found not guilty by a jury. I knew that already and the case was on my list of things to do that day, as the jury had deliberated past deadline the day before. Later, the defendant himself came up to the office to let me know the jury's verdict. The mother's email was a little scratchy, but my conversation with the gentleman was fine, if brief.

I wish more people would contact me when their cases settle. Many times cases slip beneath my radar and their conclusions never get reported. One of the main reasons for this is how the court is organized and, to be honest, how I'm disorganized.

Monday in Bennington Superior Court Criminal Division is “arraignment day.” That's when arraignment hearings are held for all the cases where there's no imminent danger of the defendant fleeing or getting into more trouble. All the arraignments are on a list and it's a simple matter of asking the clerks for certain case files. The court also has an “extras” list. These are folks who, for whatever reason, need to be arraigned right away. Extras can come on any day, usually around 1 p.m.

There is no list of resolved cases. Sure, some are scheduled for changes of plea or sentencing, but they're not always listed as such and they come sporadically, making it easy for them to slip past the media.

I've been working on a way to track the cases I write about and perhaps it's time I doubled down on my efforts, but it would be nice if defendants, or their attorneys, let me know, politely, when their cases resolve. A few months ago I began putting the word out to defense attorneys I have a rapport with to feel free to let me know when one of their cases settles. Obviously I don't expect to hear from either defendant or attorney when there's a conviction.

We often hear that the first article “gets splashed on the front page” while the follow-up gets buried in the back, but it's been my experience that most court news ends up on page two, even the initial article. Maybe by “front page” they mean highest in our website's “most viewed” section, which is dictated entirely by readers.