Legal experts say committee report could play role in Greitens trial

The special committee formed to investigate Gov. Eric Greitens released a report on Wednesday that detailed graphic witness testimony from the governor’s former mistress.

ABC 17 spoke with several attorneys about how the report could affect the upcoming criminal trial and two of them said they are worried about its impacts on the jury pool.

ABC 17 previously reported that Judge Rex Burlison ordered a partial gag order that prohibited the lawyers from revealing new information that could come from deposition materials, or opinions on what witnesses testify to.

The report was not subject to that order, however, because the committee’s investigation is not part of the criminal trial.

Defense attorney Richard Hicks said the amount of details that were made available in the report could have a negative impact on the trial’s jury.

“If a jury’s back there deliberating, and they’re, like, ‘You know what, though, I remember in that committee report Witness No.1 said this but at trial she didn’t say that.’ Now that juror is considering evidence that was never presented at trial, in trying to come to a determination,” he said. “That is the issue.”

Bill Tackett, former Cole County prosecutor, said that the twelve potential jurors and six alternates in the St. Louis area are also being exposed to information from third parties.

“At some point they start hearing the speaker of the house say ‘we believe the victim,’ at some point they see that 48 percent of Missourians in a poll think he should resign,” he said. “Enough of this is out there now where it becomes very difficult to get twelve and six, eighteen people, that don’t have an opinion or haven’t heard anything about this.”

Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri, said Thursday he didn’t think the release of the report was as harmful to the jury pool.

“A great many people in a high profile case like this are going to have some information from the media,” he said. “Now this is unusually specific information and I think for that reason the publication of this report may make jury selection more difficult, but it’s not impossible.”

The report cannot be directly submitted into evidence because witness testimony was never subjected to cross-examination, but Hicks said parts of it could be discussed.

He said the defense could use it to poke holes in a witness’s testimony if what they say on the stand in trial is different from what they said in the committee’s report.

It’s tougher still for the prosecution to use. They would usually only be able to utilize it after cross-examination of the witness.

For instance, if the defense suggests the victim is testifying for political purposes, the prosecutor could use the testimony to prove otherwise.

“if [the defense does] something like that, I think that opens up the door then for the prosecution to come back and say, ‘Hey, we ought to be able to show prior consistent statements to rebut the defense’s suggestion that this was all recent fabrication,'” Hicks said.