4 - Wednesday, February 2, 1994 ~ North Shore News There are no facts as juicy as forbidden facts TOTALLY OFF the record, and very much against (he law, somebody talked to me about the Homolka-Teale vase recently, saying what somebody etse who had been at the trial said had been said, As an old reporter myself | know how fast astory starts to get bent out of shape as it is passed by word of mouth from one person to another. (un my view, once you are hear- ing something second-hand, it night as well be described as gos- sip. Few people are capable of quoting much verbatim, so the dis- tortions — nicely called paraphras- ing — begin. Naturally, | passed on the gossip I'd picked up about the Homotka- Teale case, which involved the tor- ture and sex slayings of at least two young girls, as soon as | possibly could. The fact that I swore not to pass it on was just part of the ritual involved in such exchanges of taboo information, as far as | was concerned, And there's the whole rub. When any information becomes secret in our modern. officially open, high-tech data-based society, it runs the risk of attracting atten- tion to itself just by virtue of being contraband. © Runs the risk? Hell. guarantees it, So long as the details are lurid , enough. . So far as the media are con- cerned. there are no facts as juicy as forbidden facts. This isn’t just perversity on the part of Peeping Tom reporters. by the way: it reflects a widespread human compulsion to babble, tattle and pratile, I've heard it said repeatedly that Ontario's NGBP attorney general, Marion Boyd, isn’t a lawyer, and - _ therefore didn’t realize what she was doing when she slapped down a publication ban that has com- pletely backfired, amplifying the profile of the case she was trying to keep under wraps. But it’s not so much a question of cnowledge of the law. Boyd should have spent a few hours in journalism school, getting accus- tomed to the idea of a multibillion- dollar global industry that thrives _ on digging-up dirt while wrapped in ihe flag. aided and abetted. always. by the endiessly gossiping masses. Tidbits from the trial have emerged on computer bulletin boards: snippets have inadvertently slipped through the electronic cracks from American TV stations that forgot to blank out verboren segments for transborder broadcast: and, of course, xeroxes of uncen- sored U.S. newspaper stories have hit the fax machines across Canada. What the judge in the case and the lefl-wing attorney general both blithely’ overlooked when they called for a publicity gag on any details of the trial was the sheer weight of hardware lined up against them. They have plunked themselves down firmly and defiantly in the iniddie of the information super- highway in full Jotus positions, holding their hands up. saying: “Halt!” All around them, needless to say, tape recorders and computers and video cameras and faxes and photocopiers and cellular phones are thundering by, delivering banned sound bites and copy to monitors, screens, headphones and CD-ROMs around the world. ob 7 STRICTLY PERSONAL All the judge and the politician have done ts ensure that when Paul Teale finally goes to court. the courtroom will be swarmed by media, and it will become the very Pig-circus the ban was supposed to prevent it from becoming. The argument that Teale’s chances to a fair trial would be jeopardized by revelations at Homotka’s trial is based on the out- dated notion that information could be kept bottled up in the courtroom. where it wouldn't contaminate the brains of potential jurors, prejudic- ing them. Poor old Canadian Lawmakers. living ina time warp! The case raises serious ques- tions, not just about the wisdom of trying to keep trial details seeret in the Information Age, but about the kinds of plea-barguining deals cops and lawyers make behind the seene Karla Homolka got away with 12 yeurs in exchange for producing incriminating evidence against her former husband and accused pari- ner in sex crime, but while her sen- tence has been handed down, she has not yel testified in court against him, What guarantee is there that she will? In the U.S. in such cases, the fink trading evidence for time off faces retrial if he doesn’t deliver, No such fegal mechanism exists here. Just on the basis of what | was told had been said during Homolka’s trial, [am enraged that she got away with a mere £2 years. But, of course. Pim basing this reac- tion on hearsay, which rightfully has no place ina court of kw. The bottom line is that hearsay is electronically magnified these days, to the point where it can’t be ignored. Rather than resisting the inevitable, Canada’s lawyers and cops should be demanding that the courts be opened up completely. as they have been in the States. Public trials should be public. and the cameras and microphones and notebooks do guarantees one thing — namely, that the pubtic ts traly present in ringside seats. You can argue that trials and congressional-lype hearings hive become partof the entertainment package. and that there is same- thing inherently wrong with this, but media exposure forces court staff, judges and lawyers alike to be more careful about what they say and do, As for the risk ef enraging pub- lic opinion by making lousy judg- ments: well. is a risk all righe But that’s precisely why we're sup- posed to have a right to Know, I's us keeping an eve on the law, which we cant do if the kaw shuts us oul. 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