Judge Orders Prosecution to Turn over Docs: Bullet #62

Judge Orders Prosecution to Turn over Docs – MJEOL Bullet #62 There are two motions pending in the Jackson case: one is the gag order filed by the prosecution and the other is the motion filed by media outlets requesting the judge to unseal the prosecution search warrants. It was just announced (approx. 3:30pm CST) by Dan Abrams on MSNBC that the judge has ordered the prosecution to turn over all documents related to the search of Neverland Ranch to the defense. Earlier, several media entities filed a motion in court to get their hands on the search warrant information before the defense had even had an opportunity to review the documents themselves. Mark Geragos filed an opposition response to the media’s motion. In that opposition motion, Geragos complained that he had made a prior request to the prosecution to view the search warrants and was refused. Geragos stated that the California Rules of Court “implicitly presume that the affected parties have had an opportunity to actually review the records sought to be unsealed” (see Opposition Motion). Geragos further says since neither Jackson nor his defense counsel had the opportunity to view the sealed documents, “it is impossible for him to put forth an informed argument as to why the documents should or should not remain sealed.” A layman looking at the situation would think it rather odd the prosecution previously refused to give the defense a copy of the search warrant information. This may have something to do with earlier reports from CNN legal analyst Kimberly Newsom. She stated that the dates of the alleged abuse listed on the search warrants are completely different from the ones on the charging document (Feb 7-March 10) filed against Jackson. Gary Dunlap, an attorney currently suing Tom Sneddon and the DA’s office for $10 million, has had his own run-ins with Sneddon’s tactics. He says “Sneddon and his office prefer to do things in secret. That’s why they hate this media focus that’s been put on this case. Because they operate best, you know, under the covers.” However, the intense media focus was spurred first by that joke of a press conference given by the DA and the sheriff. By keeping the defense from knowing something they have every legal right to be made aware of, Sneddon hoped to catch the defense off-guard. Some have speculated Sneddon furthered this case initially hoping that an avalanche of alleged “victims” would come forth to bolster the allegation. Working on the premise that Jackson was guilty–instead of only wanting to find out the truth–has greatly damaged Sneddon’s credibility. Initially attempting to keep the defense from seeing the search warrant information is yet another strange move in a series of peculiar prosecution maneuvers. Stay Tuned. -MJEOL