Lawyer: Open JonBenet grand jury files

Attorney for Ramseys' former housekeeper says public has right to secret testimony

Owen S. Good, News Staff Writer

Published July 4, 2001 at midnight

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BOULDER -- In a spin-off case from the JonBenet Ramsey murder, a lawyer will argue in federal court Thursday that the Colorado courts' rule keeping grand jury witnesses from revealing their testimony is unconstitutional.

If his challenge is successful, Darnay Hoffman of New York said Tuesday, it will pick the lock on 13 months of secret grand jury proceedings and leave reporters and lawyers free to dig for answers as to why the panel disbanded without issuing a report.

"I've used the term floodgate and I'm not exaggerating," Hoffman said, characterizing the information that could come from dozens of witnesses if they are free to divulge what they told grand jurors.

Hoffman is representing former Ramsey housekeeper Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, who testified before the grand jury. She wants to include her testimony in a book she plans to write about the murder.

Under a rule adopted by the Colorado Supreme Court, and then verified by the state legislature, witnesses cannot talk about their testimony until a grand jury decides to indict or not to indict, or when it issues a report. The Ramsey grand jury did none of the three, leaving the secrecy rule in effect indefinitely.

Hoffman calls that a violation of the witnesses' First Amendment rights, and has accused then-District Attorney Alex Hunter of abusing the process to seal off the record of his prosecution, and immunize himself from criticism.

"If it turns out a great deal of information was given to the grand jury, which could have led to an indictment and there was no indictment, then should a special prosecutor have been appointed?" Hoffman said.

Though he did not file a supporting brief, Ramsey attorney L. Lin Wood also would like the secrecy rule abolished. But whereas Hoffman is convinced it would help prove a special prosecutor should have been appointed, Wood believes it would show the grand jury voted not to indict John and Patsy Ramsey in the death of their daughter.

"I believe it was a vote straight-up, straight-down, no indictment," he said. "I believe the D.A.'s office circumvented the law by allowing that fact to be covered up."

Hunter did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Assistant County Attorney Andy Macdonald, representing the district attorney's office, said the rule is only a prohibition on a witness identifying his or her knowledge as something told to grand jurors. It doesn't prohibit them from disclosing that knowledge.

For example, former investigator Lou Smit has shown reporters a computer presentation advancing an intruder theory about the murder. Smit fought Hunter to present it to the grand jury, and though he has never said so, it is an open secret that grand jurors saw all or part of it.

"If I were Darnay, that's what I'd be arguing," Wood said, that Smit's discussion of a presentation prepared for the grand jury has not harmed the case.

Smit declined to comment on the secrecy rule.

Also, Hoffman said, if the secrecy law were struck down, reluctant witnesses couldn't use it as a shield against subpoenas in the civil trials growing out of the case. Ramsey ex-friend Fleet White, who faces contempt proceedings for ignoring a subpoena in an offshoot criminal case in Jefferson County, is someone Hoffman would call.

Wood said he would bring in Hunter and get to the bottom of how the grand jury voted.

Hoffman is basing his argument on a Supreme Court ruling striking down a Florida grand jury secrecy law. Macdonald contends it was different from Colorado's rule.

The hearing is 2:30 p.m. before Judge Wiley Y. Daniel.

Contact Owen S. Good at (303) 442-8729 or goodo@RockyMountainNews.com.

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