Lobbying the Judge

"Why such extensive coverage? ... [B]ecause the convicted defendant is a young, white 'Christian' woman."

Today's Pensacola News Journal goes to extraordinary lengths to argue against punishing Janelle Bird, the 24 year-old Escambia County school teacher who carried on a two year affair with her 15 year-old student. She was convicted last July of "two [felony] counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and two [felony] counts of committing unnatural and lascivious acts." She faces a sentencing hearing this week.

Unprecedented Newpaper Coverage

So far as our own memory stretches, over the last two decades the Pensacola daily newspaper has never before devoted so much ink, newspaper space, or reporting energy to lobbying a trial judge before the day of sentencing. We've checked with others who are lifelong residents of the community and they can't remember such a thing, either.

Today's coverage really is quite unprecedented. There are two separate articles written by Nicole Lozare in an unmistakably sympathetic, even advocative manner; two sidebars giving additional details; yet another cross-page column excerpting "letters to Judge Geeker;" and five -- count 'em, five! -- photographs, including a full-color, oversized portrait of the weeping defendant that dominates the front page above the fold.

One of the sidebars prominently announces on the front page the exact time and location of the sentencing hearing. The interior "letters to the judge" article quotes the asseverations, urgings and excuses mailed in by family, friends, and even complete strangers whose only apparent connection to the case is that they happened to have read newspaper accounts of the trial -- accounts which also were written by Lozare.

Altogether, a quick count shows the newspaper devoted about 3,029 words to covering Janelle Bird's upcoming sentencing. That's an extraordinary commitment for this newspaper to make to any news story, much less a local one involving no particularly far-reaching issues of public importance.

Why?

The question naturally arises, why such extensive coverage? Sadly, the most probable answer is because the convicted defendant is a young, white "Christian" woman.

It is simply impossible to believe that Nicole Lozare or the Pensacola News Journal would have devoted even half the coverage they've given Bird's trial and sentencing if she had been black... a man... or not affiliated with a self-described "Christian" sect. In fact, we know they wouldn't -- because they never do.

Locally, there have been any number of similar teacher-student seduction cases, and worse. None of them has received the fulsome splash the PNJ makes for Ms. Bird today.

Indeed, for confirmation one needs only to turn to the inside Local News section of today's same newspaper to see the contrast. There, below the fold, reporter Tom Ninestine covered a formal 45 minute press conference at the Union Baptist Church given by family members of Adrian Scott, Jr. Scott is a 36 year-old black man convicted a year ago of murdering "his two year old stepson more than four years ago."

At the press conference, members of Scott's family put on display "five crates of documents and several thick binders" which they contend show the child actually died as a result of an accident. Ninestine's 500 word article is accompanied by one small photo of the convicted defendant and another of his prosecutor. As one would expect from a solid reporter of Ninestine's skills, spokespeople from both sides of the case and other medical experts are quoted extensively.

We have no way of knowing whether Scott was wrongly convicted, any more than we would hazard a guess what the appropriate sentence for Janelle Bird should be. Those are individualized questions for the courts to decide based on an objective, unbiased application of the appropriate criteria required by law and the facts as they may become known at the hearing.

What we are sure about is that pre-sentence lobbying of a judge by a newspaper or a reporter through the front-page of the daily newspaper is highly inappropriate -- and, if there is any justice, it's unlikely to succeed in Bird's case.

Defendant's Excuses

To be sure, there are reasons to feel sorry for both convicted defendants, Ms. Bird and Mr. Scott, as well as their victims. There always are.

In this case, the newspaper made an effort to catalogue all of those reasons for Janelle Bird even before her lawyer or the prosecutor have produced the relevant evidence and articulated their respective positions in court. The PNJ is not known for going to such lengths for any other major story, whether about the new Military Commissions law or the shocking news that a Florida congressman resigned after trying to seduce teen-aged congressional pages with emails and text messages.

So what's really going on here?

Judging from the accounts we have been shown, Janella Bird is a grotesquely naive and very stupid woman whose sole argument for leniency is that she is a "Christian." She was raised in the suffocating isolation of a "Christian" home intolerant of other religions, much less secular ideas. She went to school, for a time, at a tiny "Christian" school and then "home-schooled" for the rest of her K-12 years. For her, entering the notoriously insular, academically fourth-rate Pensacola Christian College was a "first venture into the larger world," in the commiserating words of Ms. Lozare.

It may be true, as some of the informants Nicole Lozare relies upon say, that the maximum penalty this defendant ex-teacher faces is overly harsh. But the same might be said for many or even most defendants. Surely it could have been said for Adrian Scott, Jr., too. Every criminal defendant, except perhaps for those super-rich corporate thieves from Halliburton or Enron, has a sad tale to tell about their deprived childhoods, their mental incapacities, the unsuitability of prison, or all of the above.

In Bird's case, however, neither her supporters nor, apparently, the plainly biased Lozare are prepared to acknowledge that perhaps the sentencing law itself is too strict. Instead, their argument seems to be that an exception should be made, but only for her. And to do that, some even are willing to blame her 15 year-old victim. As one letter writer for Bird has said (though he is acknowledged not to know any of the parties):

"The young man involved was streetwise and very much the aggressor here. Age is not always the best gauge of who is the aggressor and who is the victim."

See? The devil made her do it.

Broader Public Issues

There is a case to be made that new and harsher statutory penalties for violating sex offender laws, in Florida as in many other states, have become too draconian. Apparently, however, it's a case in which neither Lozare nor those she interviewed have any interest.

Many sex offenses are defined so vaguely and prosecutors have been handed such broad charging discretion that even a minor offense, like urinating in a public alleyway, on occasions can be -- and has been -- inflated to the level of a serious felony.

Most prisons are notorious for being exactly the wrong place to incarcerate a sex offender. Convicted defendants who have served their time are branded for life even after release. The latest fad is for individual jurisdictions -- towns, cities, counties -- to pass ordinances forbidding any defendant who has ever been convicted of a sex offense from living within their jurisdicitonal limits.

Legislatures offer little or no funding for mental health treatment, although they always manage to find the hundreds of millions needed to build new prisons.

In short, the politicians we elect habitually posture like tough guys who know all the right answers. But the only answer they really have when it comes to someone else's sex crime is, 'Throw away the key.'

The Newspaper's Role

As it happens, we're strongly in favor of seeing expanded coverage of the criminal and civil courts by local journalists. Given the nature of our society, it's almost inevitable that nearly every issue of public importance eventually winds up inside a courtroom in one context or another. Newspapers should cover such matters thoroughly and professionally, if for no other reason than to better educate their readers so that the next time they hear some politician spouting nonsense they'll be able to see it for what it is.

What strikes us as entirely inappropriate is superficial news coverage; or sensationalist coverage on the order of cable news stations; or the equally dismal reporting of judicial proceedings by journalists who have a personal agenda that prejudices their reports for or against one side of a case while it's still going on.

Today's PNJ coverage of the upcoming sentencing hearing for Janelle Bird managed to violate all three of those standards. It was superficial. It was sensationalist. And it showed a deep and abiding bias that neither elucidates any issue of public importance nor educates the public about the judicial system.