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The 'Batman' Killings: Trial Nears








 I know that a lot of news has passed under the current-events bridge of late, but: does everyone remember the Batman murders in Aurora, Colorado? Summer of 2012?
I recall it because the trial date in approaching (October '14) and because it has already spurred some ancillary appellate litigation in which regular readers of this blog may well have opinions.
 The US Supreme Court decided on May 27, 2014 that it would not hear an appeal from a decision of the highest state court in New York. That court had employed the state's "shield" law to quash a subpoena issued in Colorado. so you have issues of interstate comity, state/federal relations etc.
The gist of it is that somebody involved in this case violated a trial court gag order issued by the Colorado court and talked to a reporter in New York. [A reporter for Fox News, which of course doesn't matter as a matter of legal principle at all but may matter to some readers for all I know. Further, I suspect that if Jana Winters worked for, say, CBE or Reuters we'd be hearing a lot about this from Fox. In a tone of outrage. Anyway.... ]
The reporter, Jana Winters, the lass whose photo you see here, ran with a story about Holmes' contact with a University of Colorado psychologist based on her anonymous and gag-order-violating sources.
The defense counsel sought and obtained the subpoena that would require Winters to tell them who her sources were. Perhaps the defense counsel want cross-examination material against some potential prosecution witness who may also have been the leaker. I don't know.
The highest court in NY State agreed with Fox's lawyers that Winters is protected by that state's shield law and can ignore the subpoena. The US Supreme Court has allowed that decision to stand, by refusing to hear Holmes' appeal.   
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  1. HeatherJune 1, 2014 at 9:09 AM

    Part or all of this post was stolen by the blogger at benaffleckbatman.net. He did it to me too (and several others as well.) His blog needs to be taken down! As of today, I have been unable to contact him. Perhaps you will have better luck. Just thought you should know that someone is stealing from you.

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