Minnesota Lawyer Blog

I finally caught the Dateline NBC show on the local murder case of Teri Lee -- the 3M employee whose ex-boyfriend broke into her house and murdered her and her new boyfriend.

As you recall, I blogged earlier that the show would be on last Monday (See "Bill Harper ready for his close up on NBC's Dateline"), but the program wound up being preempted locally by the weather coverage of the massive thunderstorms that we had here that day.

Kare 11 broadcast the Dateline on the case last night. Most of the coverage (I'd say about 99.5 percent) was devoted to the criminal trial. Harper, who is representing Lee's family in a negligence suit against the company that installed her (supposedly) state-of-the-art alarm did not appear on the show at all. Apparently Harper wasted his time talking to the Dateline crew, only to have the footage left on the cutting-room floor. Perhaps they could have fit more on the civil case in if they had just done one less advertisement for a hair-care product. But then again, that might be asking too much.

Woodbury attorney Bill Harper is about to get his 15 minutes of fame. Well, OK, it's actually more like an hour of TV network prime time devoted to a case which he is handling. Harper is representing the family of Teri Lee, who was murdered when her ex-boyfriend broke into her home and shot both her and her new boyfriend. The assailant was convicted on two counts of murder.

Lee's family is suing the company that installed the state-of-the-art security system on Lee's house. They allege she never had chance because the system was defective and provided no warning.

Minnesota Lawyer is running a story on the case in Monday's edition, but you may also want to catch Bill on TV. The show on which he will appear is NBC's Dateline, which airs locally Mondays on KARE-11 at 9:00 p.m.. The Minnesota case is currently scheduled to be shown this upcoming Monday.

Speaking of of the issue of judicial safety, we just got this statement in from the the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.

The IBAHRI condemns the murder of four Afghan judges. The bodies of the four judges, along with their driver, were found on the evening of July 31. They had all been abducted on July 24 and were later executed.

The four judges were from Paktika Province in eastern Afghanistan and were on their way to Kabul. According to the Governor’s office, no demand was reported for the release of the judges and the killings were carried out by insurgents who specifically targeted government authorities.

As the Minnesota courts scrounge for the money to install metal detectors to protect our appellate court judges, some Michigan lawmakers want to go one step further and let judges to take their security into their own hands.

Rep. Kenneth B. Horn, R-Frankenmuth, and Sen. Roger Kahn, M.D., R-Saginaw, have introduced identical bills proposing to amend the Concealed Weapons Act to allow "state court judges" to carry concealed weapons in what are otherwise known as "no-carry" zones, according to Minnesota Lawyer's sister publication, Michigan Lawyers Weekly.

Judges and their families "are being threatened by" people whom they've sent to prison, Kahn said. Some of those making threats are felons who will be released after serving their sentences, while others are "mentally unstable," and others, still, have histories of "extreme violence," he added.

Judge Fred L. Borchard, Chief Judge Pro Tempore of the 10th Circuit Court, had his life threatened twice by litigants who have appeared before him.

Borchard said that, in his experience, there are three types of cases that really bring out the emotional and, occasionally, the menacing side of people:

-- Criminal;
-- Civil commitments involving mental health issues; and
-- Family law (ranging from divorce to custody to termination of parental rights).

"All of these matters place members of the judiciary at a greater risk of harm," Borchard said.

Judges with guns? An interesting concept. I suppose proponents might say that it's worth a shot.

I am amazed every time I walk into the Minnesota Judicial Center at the total lack of adequate security. There are no metal detectors; there is no bag screening. You just walk through an unlocked door, breeze by the receptionist and stroll free as you like to the courtroom to hear, for example, an appeal argued in a first-degree murder case. There sitting before you is the entire state Supreme Court. You suddenly reach into your bag and pull out ... a reporter's notebook! But you get the idea, that could just have easily been a weapon, and I don't think those robes would have afforded the justices much protection.

Minnesota Lawyer ran a story this week on the attempt to beef up security at the state's appellate courts. ("Appellate courts await more security," subscriber password required.) The Legislature in its wisdom saw fit to nix from the courts' budget the $500,000 needed to fund the metal detectors. However, to take a phrase from Monty Python's Holy Grail, the idea is "not quite dead yet." The courts are looking at creative ways to squeeze out the funding they need and many think they will do it given the importance of this issue.

But, of course, even if that is the case, that means the courts will lose $500,000 out of another pocket. Given all that is going on in the world in general and in our courts in particular, it is perplexing to me why security was treated so cavalierly by lawmakers in the budgeting process.

Artist's rendering of proposed metal detector in Judicial Center