Post by marion on Jun 21, 2006 1:15:02 GMT -5
Sites give a voice to defense
The Web lets friends and family of defendants tell their side of the story.
By DIANE CARROLL
The Kansas City Star
June 19, 2006
“This is the First Amendment at work in cyberspace.”
Soon after Esmie Tseng was charged with murdering her mother last summer, supporters of the Overland Park girl launched Esmie.com.
The site painted a picture of a talented 16-year-old who cared about others and had a promising future. More than 36,900 visitors took a look.
With the entrenchment of the Internet, more supporters of criminal defendants are turning to Web sites to present their side of the case. The latest site in the Kansas City area is about Benjamin Appleby, who is charged in the murder of 19-year-old Ali Kemp of Leawood.
Attorneys and criminal justice authorities say the sites can be a good outlet for the supporters of defendants, who say they often have no good way to be heard. But there’s no guarantee the information posted is accurate or fair, they say. And the sites can pose ethical dilemmas for the attorneys representing the defendants.
One of the first area sites was put up in 2004 in a case that drew national attention.
That year, after a Jackson County jury deadlocked over whether Ted White Jr. was guilty of sex charges involving a child, friend Dale Gray asked himself, “What can I do?”
His answer: a Web site, Freetedwhite.com.
The Web site posted the developments in the case, right up until White was exonerated and released from prison in February 2005. When old friends from high school wanted to know “the real story,” the site provided answers, said Gray, who grew up with the White family in Aurora, Mo.
“This is the First Amendment at work in cyberspace,” said defense attorney Sean O’Brien, who represented White and is executive director of the Public Interest Litigation Clinic in Kansas City, which represents death row inmates in Missouri.
Observers disagree on whether the Web sites affect the outcome of a case.
Justin Brooks, executive director of the California Innocence Project, thinks they can. Brooks said the sites help him sort through the cases of defendants who think they are wrongly accused or convicted and decide which ones to take up.
“It’s definitely better than looking at the scrawl I get from most people,” Brooks said.
Supporters of Ken Marsh found that Freekenmarsh.com allowed them to get their story out to the media, which then publicized the San Diego case, Brooks said. Marsh was freed in 2004. He had served 21 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son.
Alex Holsinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, doubts whether the sites have much of an effect on those who matter most — the prosecutors. In Johnson County, he said, District Attorney Paul Morrison “is an extremely knowledgeable man, and I don’t see him or his office being swayed by anything other than facts or reason.”
Supporters of defendants are not the only ones setting up Web sites to offer information about crimes. The Ali Kemp site has information about her life but also refers to developments in Appleby’s case.
The Esmie.com site encouraged visitors to sign a petition calling for Morrison to prosecute Tseng in the juvenile justice system.
Tseng’s supporters lost their fight. But the site stirred up public interest, petition organizer Jacob Horwitz said. And he would like to think that the community’s attention helped Tseng get the plea bargain, which calls for her to serve eight years in prison for voluntary manslaughter instead of up to life in prison for first-degree murder.
Morrison has said he allowed the plea bargain because of Tseng’s home environment. Tseng’s mother had some unresolved mental issues, he has said, and she punished her daughter in unfair and cruel ways.
The Esmie.com site “helped engage the public,” Morrison said, and “that’s always a good thing. … We do try to factor in what the community feels about a case, although our obligation is to do what we think is appropriate and fair under the circumstances.”
On the Missouri side, White served five years in prison before being found not guilty in his third trial last year. The 44-year-old former Lee’s Summit businessman was found innocent of alleged sex acts with his stepdaughter after his attorneys showed that White’s estranged wife had been having an affair with the detective investigating the case.
White’s supporters had wanted to set up a Web site earlier, O’Brien said, but he and co-counsel Cyndy Short had discouraged the idea. After the jury deadlocked in the second trial with only one juror insisting on guilt, O’Brien said, the supporters felt they had to set up Freetedwhite.com.
“So we stepped back and let them do it,” O’Brien said.
The Web site helped raise money for White’s defense, O’Brien and Short said. But neither thinks it led to his release.
With the way the criminal justice system is set up, Short said, the media tend to get much of their information from prosecutors and police. That makes it hard for defendants to get their side of the story out, she said.
Short said the sites can provide an emotional boost for family and friends of a defendant. That’s an important consideration, she said, because “it’s a very debilitating thing to be charged with a crime, not only for the client, but the family.”
The Web lets friends and family of defendants tell their side of the story.
By DIANE CARROLL
The Kansas City Star
June 19, 2006
“This is the First Amendment at work in cyberspace.”
Soon after Esmie Tseng was charged with murdering her mother last summer, supporters of the Overland Park girl launched Esmie.com.
The site painted a picture of a talented 16-year-old who cared about others and had a promising future. More than 36,900 visitors took a look.
With the entrenchment of the Internet, more supporters of criminal defendants are turning to Web sites to present their side of the case. The latest site in the Kansas City area is about Benjamin Appleby, who is charged in the murder of 19-year-old Ali Kemp of Leawood.
Attorneys and criminal justice authorities say the sites can be a good outlet for the supporters of defendants, who say they often have no good way to be heard. But there’s no guarantee the information posted is accurate or fair, they say. And the sites can pose ethical dilemmas for the attorneys representing the defendants.
One of the first area sites was put up in 2004 in a case that drew national attention.
That year, after a Jackson County jury deadlocked over whether Ted White Jr. was guilty of sex charges involving a child, friend Dale Gray asked himself, “What can I do?”
His answer: a Web site, Freetedwhite.com.
The Web site posted the developments in the case, right up until White was exonerated and released from prison in February 2005. When old friends from high school wanted to know “the real story,” the site provided answers, said Gray, who grew up with the White family in Aurora, Mo.
“This is the First Amendment at work in cyberspace,” said defense attorney Sean O’Brien, who represented White and is executive director of the Public Interest Litigation Clinic in Kansas City, which represents death row inmates in Missouri.
Observers disagree on whether the Web sites affect the outcome of a case.
Justin Brooks, executive director of the California Innocence Project, thinks they can. Brooks said the sites help him sort through the cases of defendants who think they are wrongly accused or convicted and decide which ones to take up.
“It’s definitely better than looking at the scrawl I get from most people,” Brooks said.
Supporters of Ken Marsh found that Freekenmarsh.com allowed them to get their story out to the media, which then publicized the San Diego case, Brooks said. Marsh was freed in 2004. He had served 21 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son.
Alex Holsinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, doubts whether the sites have much of an effect on those who matter most — the prosecutors. In Johnson County, he said, District Attorney Paul Morrison “is an extremely knowledgeable man, and I don’t see him or his office being swayed by anything other than facts or reason.”
Supporters of defendants are not the only ones setting up Web sites to offer information about crimes. The Ali Kemp site has information about her life but also refers to developments in Appleby’s case.
The Esmie.com site encouraged visitors to sign a petition calling for Morrison to prosecute Tseng in the juvenile justice system.
Tseng’s supporters lost their fight. But the site stirred up public interest, petition organizer Jacob Horwitz said. And he would like to think that the community’s attention helped Tseng get the plea bargain, which calls for her to serve eight years in prison for voluntary manslaughter instead of up to life in prison for first-degree murder.
Morrison has said he allowed the plea bargain because of Tseng’s home environment. Tseng’s mother had some unresolved mental issues, he has said, and she punished her daughter in unfair and cruel ways.
The Esmie.com site “helped engage the public,” Morrison said, and “that’s always a good thing. … We do try to factor in what the community feels about a case, although our obligation is to do what we think is appropriate and fair under the circumstances.”
On the Missouri side, White served five years in prison before being found not guilty in his third trial last year. The 44-year-old former Lee’s Summit businessman was found innocent of alleged sex acts with his stepdaughter after his attorneys showed that White’s estranged wife had been having an affair with the detective investigating the case.
White’s supporters had wanted to set up a Web site earlier, O’Brien said, but he and co-counsel Cyndy Short had discouraged the idea. After the jury deadlocked in the second trial with only one juror insisting on guilt, O’Brien said, the supporters felt they had to set up Freetedwhite.com.
“So we stepped back and let them do it,” O’Brien said.
The Web site helped raise money for White’s defense, O’Brien and Short said. But neither thinks it led to his release.
With the way the criminal justice system is set up, Short said, the media tend to get much of their information from prosecutors and police. That makes it hard for defendants to get their side of the story out, she said.
Short said the sites can provide an emotional boost for family and friends of a defendant. That’s an important consideration, she said, because “it’s a very debilitating thing to be charged with a crime, not only for the client, but the family.”