HOFFMAN EVIDENCE SEALED FOR 45 DAYS

Judge Delays Setting Murder Trial Date

A Leon circuit judge ruled Friday to keep evidence in Rachel
Hoffman's murder closed to the public for 45 days.

The ruling is a compromise between local media outlets, who do not
want the evidence sealed, and the prosecutors and defense attorneys,
who want the evidence sealed for 90 days or until the start of the
trial. Their fear is that too much publicity would make it difficult
to seat an unbiased jury in Leon County.

Hoffman, 23, was fatally shot in May while working as a Tallahassee
police informant in a botched drug operation. Two men, Andrea Green,
25, of Perry, and Deneilo Bradshaw, 23, of Tallahassee, have been
charged with her murder.

After the 45 days, Circuit Judge Kathleen Dekker will allow public
access to all the documents unless either the prosecutors or the
defense attorneys file a motion to keep a specific piece of evidence
sealed, according to her order. She will then hold a closed hearing
within 15 days of that motion.

"The court takes seriously its duty to prohibit disclosure in only
the narrowest of circumstances," Dekker wrote in the order.

Tallahassee Democrat Executive Editor Bob Gabordi said: "Judge
Dekker's order was delivered very late in the day, and we've not had
a chance to thoroughly vet the details. We're pleased she rejected a
blanket seal on pretrial documents, but we're still weighing what her
order means and how it will impact access to public information."

In a second order, Hoffman's parents were not granted special access
to pretrial evidence, but they may contact the State Attorney's
Office for information about their daughter's death.

Friday morning at a pretrial hearing, Dekker put off setting a date
for the murder trial because the defense had not yet seen any of the
evidence in the case.

She gave prosecutors until 5 p.m. next Friday to turn over the
evidence they've had time to cull through, so the defense would have
about three weeks to look it over.

Dekker scheduled a case-management conference for Sept. 12, when a
trial date will be set. She mentioned possible trial dates in July
and October 2009 if the defendants decide to waive their right to a
speedy trial.

"I am willing to make my calendar open and bump cases if necessary in
order to resolve issues to move this case along smoothly to a
conclusion," Dekker said. "If speedy trial is not waived, that means
setting this case within 175 days and trying this case, if need be. I
am ready, willing and able to do that."

Assistant State Attorney Frank Allman said he has four to five
three-ring binders thick with evidence. It took him, he said, about
seven hours to go through one binder, which contains names of about
100 witnesses and supplemental reports of what they said.

"This is the kind of case that, as everybody here well knows, is
going to be looked at from now through decades, and every 'i' has to
be dotted, every 't' has got to be crossed, as far as discovery," Allman said.

Assistant Public Defender Ines Suber, who is representing Green,
asked the court to impose a deadline for prosecutors to announce
whether they will seek the death penalty, since this affects the
amount of work the defense puts into the case. Instead, Dekker asked
prosecutors in good faith to announce their decision once it's made
and not keep it a secret.

"As in every capital case where the death penalty is on the table, a
lot of defense effort goes into background investigations and
mitigating evidence, and that's a huge amount of research, time and
expense," she said. "I mean sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Whether the defendants, Green and Bradshaw, will be tried together or
separately remains to be decided.

Both were indicted Aug. 1 by a Leon County grand jury on charges of
first-degree murder, armed robbery and possession of a gun by a
convicted felon. The grand jury also issued a scathing report of the
Tallahassee Police Department and the Drug Enforcement
Administration, citing their negligence as a contributing factor in
Hoffman's death.