Ritzville-Day One
The following is my recollection of the events surrounding the trial of Manuel Beliz who was charged with molesting Erica Garza Rodriguez when she was a child.
I arrived in Seattle WA on Sunday the twelfth of August around 8 pm. The night air was cool compared to Kentucky it was a nice change. A local family volunteered to use of their car as money was tight and it would save on a rental car fee. In addition, another local family volunteered to pick me up from the airport to save on charges in that regard also. I spent the night in Seattle as I had another constituent coming in Monday morning who needed transportation to Ritzville. Unknown to myself a series of events had occurred prior to my arrival that would affect the events of that day. They are as follows: The Othello Outlook a weekly paper ran a article last Friday that spoke of certain inside information concerning the upcoming trial. This was in complete violation of the understanding I had with the reporter. The understanding was that nothing would be run in the paper until after the trial was over. While the news story did not contain much of what we talked about, it could not have come at a worse time. To publish any information could cause difficulty for Erica. The publishing of this article did just that.
A pre-trial hearing was called Monday at noon and the defense asked for a change of venue and possible dropping of all charges. The running of the article was mentioned to lay the basis for an appeal of any judgment should the trial proceed. Finally, a local person who is an advocate very active in approaching the media about the Erica trial was summoned to testify about their involvement. At the pre-trial hearing this individual offered Erica’s story printed off the silentlambs website as part of the record. While being done in good faith, this did not help Erica at all as every word written was now to be closely examined for any error. After extensive review one error was found and this was where Erica stated she came forward about the molestation at the age of nineteen. Erica had called me about it earlier, stating she had hit the wrong key and meant to say sixteen. It was so small I did not correct it, yet the defense took this one error, a typo, and used it to make the claim that Erica must be mentally incompetent and needed a professional therapist to determine if she was mentally able to testify. This would of course prolong the trial to a later date. The defense was also informed of Dateline doing an interview Monday evening and demanded a copy of the interview for examination.
All these things were very stressful to Erica and her family; this was going on while I was in route to Ritzville. Also, during the day Monday, phone calls were made to Erica’s room with no one speaking, and then hanging up. Someone knocked loudly at her door, when she went to check, no one was there. Was this some form of intimidation? A police report was filed regardless.
We finally arrived after some car trouble and got to meet Erica and her family. It was great to finally meet her in person, hugs were passed around the room, and the events that had happened that day were related. After talking for about twenty minutes the prosecutor, Gary Brueher arrived. He was extremely upset saying the jury pool had more than likely been tainted by the Othello newspaper story. When I asked his opinion as to if a jury could be selected, he gave it only a 40% chance of happening. Mr. Brueher went on to say the article had given Mr. Beliz an appeal in a gold box, He went on to say he and the judge did not want to bring religion into this trial in any way, finally he absolutely forbid Erica or any member of her family to have any interview on Dateline Monday night. This was quite a blow and again very stressful. Dateline had flown in John Larson especially for the interview, spending several thousand dollars to set this up. Personally I began to wonder whom Mr. Breuher was working for. I called Dateline trying to find room for negotiation; I was told if the interview did not proceed tonight this part of the story was dead. This was very disappointing, as Erica wanted her story told to help others. We rather glumly drove to where the interview was to take place. The camera crew had been setting up for the last six hours and we had to inform them that nothing was going to happen tonight. The Dateline crew was professional and polite, though very disappointed as to being shot down by Mr. Breuher, especially after expending so much money, time and effort to make the interview happen. They were understanding of the situation and had dinner with Erica’s family and myself.
It was a very stressful and long day no one got to bed before midnight. Tuesday was going to be a big day as jury selection was to start. Monday had not gotten off to a good start, at this point it appeared that there may not even be a trial if a jury could not be selected, the Dateline interview had been lost, we wondered what was going to happen next? Would Erica be forced to go through the entire process without justice again?
Not this time.
Stay tuned for day two.