12/04/2002

Associated Press

PORT COQUITLAM, British Columbia – Journalists must be permitted in the courtroom to explain to the public what happens at the preliminary hearing for Robert Pickton, a media lawyer said Tuesday.

Pickton, 53, faces 15 first-degree murder charges, with police still searching a Port Coquitlam pig farm he owns with his siblings for possible remains of more than 50 other women missing from the Vancouver area.

His lawyer is arguing in court that the preliminary hearing, which determines if sufficient evidence exists for a trial, should be closed to all but lawyers and court officials to prevent media reports on untested evidence that could jeopardize selection of an impartial jury.

BCTV on Global Willy Pickton

Ritchie fears U.S. media would publish details of the evidence, and the reports would get into Canada via the Internet, cable and satellite television broadcasts and imported newspapers.

Barry Gibson, representing two Vancouver newspapers and a television station, agreed with Ritchie that foreign media were the problem, but he said that barring all journalists would be improper.

If the charges against Pickton get dropped, then a closed courtroom would prevent the public from finding out what happened and why, Gibson said.

"There has to be someone here to explain what happened in this courtroom," Gibson told Port Coquitlam Provincial Court Judge David Stone, who will decide what restrictions apply to the hearing scheduled to formally begin in January.

Lawyer David Sutherland, representing four Seattle TV stations affiliated with U.S. networks, said his clients are aware they "guests in Canada and want to respect the rulings of the court."

His clients would block transmissions of the preliminary hearing into Canada, he said.

"I am instructed that blocking out transmissions to Canada is commonly done by TV stations," Sutherland said.

For the second straight day, Pickton observed the proceedings from behind bulletproof glass in a special defendant's box.

A search combining elements of police work, scientific analysis and archaeological digging has uncovered DNA and body parts of some of the missing women at the property east of Vancouver owned by Pickton and his siblings.

In seeking a closed courtroom, Ritchie argued Monday that controlling information on the evidence at the preliminary hearing will be impossible if journalists and relatives of the dead and missing are present.

He said the overriding concern should be selection of an impartial jury, calling a ban on attendance by journalists and family members "an awesome decision to be made in the rarest of cases."

Pickton was arrested days after police raided his family property in February. He previously had been arrested in connection with a 1997 knife attack on a prostitute, but the charges, including attempted murder, were dismissed in 1998.

Relatives of the dead and missing women say police ignored them for years when they warned that drug addicts and prostitutes from Vancouver's seamy Downtown Eastside were disappearing, perhaps victimized by a serial killer.

At least two lawsuits have been filed by relatives of missing women against Vancouver authorities, claiming police incompetence and a failure to properly investigate contributed to the continuing disappearances.

In a statement of defense to one of the lawsuits, filed by the family of one of his alleged victims, Pickton denied killing the woman or burying or disposing of her remains.