Inter Lake managers testify at hearing for Justine Winter
The publisher and managing editor of The Daily Inter Lake provided brief testimony Tuesday in District Court during a hearing aimed at determining whether or not an Evergreen teen’s homicide trial should be moved out of Northwest Montana.
Publisher Rick Weaver and Managing Editor Frank Miele were subpoenaed after an attorney for 17-year-old Justine Winter asked for a change of venue based on comments on the Inter Lake website and a letter to the editor he perceived to be inflammatory.
Attorney David Stufft is seeking to prove that the comments — some of which called for the death penalty and other types of punishment — indicate an objective jury could not be found in Flathead County.
Winter has been charged with two counts of deliberate homicide related to a March 19, 2009, collision that killed Columbia Falls woman Erin Thompson and her 13-year-old son Caden Vincent Odell. Thompson was pregnant at the time.
Prosecutors accuse Winter of intentionally crossing the centerline in an attempted suicide. In text messages sent to her boyfriend at the time, she referenced killing herself and crashing her car, according to court documents.
In a response to the requested change of venue, the Flathead County Attorney’s Office said it was Winter’s decision to file a lawsuit against the estate of Thompson that drew the ire of readers, not the coverage itself.
Miele and Weaver didn’t attend a Sept. 15 hearing on the change of venue after citing Montana’s Media Confidentiality Law, also known as a shield law. A half-dozen online commenters testified during that hearing, and Judge Katherine Curtis extended testimony to Tuesday while ordering Miele and Weaver to attend.
Curtis limited the questions Stufft could ask to those relative to circulation and readership. She said the shield law prevented questioning on news content in the paper.
Deputy County Attorney Lori Adams and Inter Lake attorney Mike Meloy objected to Stufft’s questioning six times during the 15-minute hearing, and all but one of the objections were upheld by Curtis.
Stufft attempted to question Miele on his relationship with the Thompson family and his knowledge and opinion of comments, both lines of inquiry barred by Curtis. In the end, Weaver and Miele testified to the size of the Inter Lake’s paid circulation — an average of between 17,000 and 18,000 copies per day.
Curtis asked Stufft and Adams to submit their proposed findings relative to a change in venue by Monday afternoon.
She said her ruling on the request to change the venue would come “fairly shortly” after that deadline. Winter’s trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection Nov. 8.
Deliberate homicide carries a sentence of between 10 years and 100 years in prison, or life imprisonment.
Reporter Eric Schwartz may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at eschwartz@dailyinterlake.com