Saturday, September 04, 2010

In The Seattle Media The Anne Bremner Case Continues To Reverberate

Posted by Peter Quennell

Maybe Anne Bremner should have quit talking while ahead. This thing continues to bounce around like a billiard ball.

1) Tim Haeck of Kiro Radio set out the terms of the sentence.

The 52-year-old attorney will do jail time and get five years probation but she keeps her driver’s license because she’s agreed to use an interlock device on her ignition. She’s required to blow into the device and the car will not start if she’s intoxicated.

Longtime DUI attorney Doug Cowan says Bremner’s sentence is normal for a first time offender. “That is the mandatory minimum sentence, the judge doesn’t have any discretion but to impose at least what was imposed in Bremner’s case. That’s what is typically given whether it’s after a trial or a person pleads guilty,” says Cowan…

Cowan says Bremner’s sentence is typical. She got a $5,000 fine, with all but $1,100 suspended. She’s on five years probation. She’ll attend an alcohol education class and listen to a panel of drunk driving victims.

2) In this radio interview first linked to by commenter Cath, which seemed to demonstrate a lot less class than her court statement, Anne Bremner seems to play down her alcohol level in favor of her bipolar disorder, and suggests that “in a perfect storm” the traffic officer may have wrongly reacted to a claimed very small alcohol intake.

3) Today Friday in a Seattle Times report by Sara Jean Green the King County cop presents a picture of someone who was severely alcohol-impaired when arrested rather than someone suffering a bipolar attack.

High-profile Seattle attorney Anne Bremner was belligerent during her arrest for drunken driving in June, calling the King County sheriff’s deputy a “Nazi” and the “creepiest cop” she’d ever met, according to a heavily redacted copy of the deputy’s report Bremner released Friday.

Deputy Brandon Moen wrote that he could smell an “overwhelmingly strong odor of intoxicants” coming from Bremner’s breath. As she was being driven to the King County Jail, Bremner, 52, threatened to sue Moen and called him a liar, the report says.

She began “hitting her head” on the plastic partition between the front and back seats in the police cruiser, apparently upset the deputy “wasn’t responding to her comments,” Moen wrote….

4) And also in Sara Jean Green’s report posted today, Anne Bremner and/or her legal team seem to be strongly backing down from a promised full release of the video and documents which the Seattle Times, Seattle PI, and two Seattle TV stations had requested the county courts to release - and presumably now could sue for. 

At the time of her guilty plea, her attorney Bill Bowman said Bremner would withdraw her legal challenge that sought to keep the documents from being released, and said records would be available by Friday.

But as of 4:30 p.m. Friday, Bremner’s case docket showed nothing had been filed with the state Court of Appeals to lift the stay that was keeping the records out of the public eye, according to King County sheriff’s spokesman, Sgt. John Urquhart.

Instead, Bremner sent The Seattle Times a redacted version of the deputy’s report, partial video footage and audio files of two 911 calls she had made before her arrest. Her name and other information was blacked out throughout the report.

If the stay had been lifted, the Sheriff’s Office was prepared to release at least three reports from different officers, an officer’s handwritten notes, a report from an investigator who examined Bremner’s car, at least two e-mails, police radio transmissions, Bremner’s 911 calls, a 911 call placed by another driver who observed her vehicle, and video footage from several areas in the Kenmore police precinct, Urquhart said.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Anne Bremner’s Drunk Driving Mea Culpa: Now One For Meredith’s Friends And Especially Her Family?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Anne Bremner rather classily pleaded guilty today to drunk driving, in this King5 video above and this Seattle PI story.

The only victim in this incident, very fortunately, was Anne Bremner’s pride and self-image. No actual person got hurt.

Very different from the strident campaign she has run on TV and via her creation, the now-hapless Friends of Amanda. That misguided effort over two-plus years which misled so many and bred so much false hope caused a lot of real hurt in England and Italy.

The much-praised Massei sentencing report has now methodically shot down every one of her claims, and it shows how competent the investigation really was and how fair Amanda Knox’s trial and verdict.

There is pretty well zero chance of the verdict being overturned on appeal. Amanda Knox’s lawyers and Knox herself now seem to realize this.

How nice then if, while Anne Bremner is in an apologizing mood, she offers a similarly classy mea culpa to the Italian authorities. And to Meredith’s many friends, who have had a very tough two-plus years.

And especially to Meredith’s poor family.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Is The Campaign That Ranted Against Italy For So Long Now Fearing An Italian-American Backlash?

Posted by Peter Quennell

This bizarre Seattle PI blog post suggests that the Knox PR campaign may now fear a major Italian-American backlash.

Really?!

Not exactly surprising, after first stirring up so much anti-Italy hate - remember “third world country” and “keystone cops” and “kangaroo court” and “saving face” and “anti Americanism” and “tabloid journalism” and on and on?

Not to mention “evil Mignini” hoodwinking everyone in Italy all the way up to the Supreme Court with “satanic conspiracies” that work easily in a “catholic country” implying everyone there is too prudish or simply not very bright?

When did they ever say anything about Italy that was actually nice? Or restrain their forces from being over-the-top nasty, as with the venom the white knights STILL direct toward Mr Mignini?

Really GOOD PR people seek to merely shade the truth.

They don’t ever build a campaign around a really big lie, because when the really big lie comes down, it really comes crashing down and ALL is lost. A result worse than if there had been no campaign at all.

Proof?  Read the many hard, angry and incisive comments right under that blog post. And we know that Italian Americans now are showing some sure signs of having had more than enough.

Not exactly a PR man’s dream. 

Added: Important Breaking News

We all already know that the US State Department up to and including Hillary Clinton not only finds the Knox campaign ludicrous and very unhelpful -  they also regard it as xenophobic.

Now the chief of staff of an Italian-American member of the US Congress in Washington DC (not, obviously, David Wu’s chief of staff) has sent us this request.

He would like to get every possible example of the sliming of Italy and the Italian officials on Meredith’s case, including the sliming of Giuliano Mignini.

Please could our readers email or post here below any examples you may know of? We may create a new TJMK page just for them.

This may factor into political races in November, and there may be a political motion in the US Congress to stop this vile anti-Italy campaign dead.

The Anne Bremner Case: The Seattle Times Posts A Tough No-Nonsense Editorial

Posted by Peter Quennell

The post directly below this brings the case up to date.

The Seattle Times has been taking a strong principled stand in its court motions and in its reporting. Now this strong editorial indicates that the Seattle Time stand is resonating with the vast majority of Seattlites.

They presumably want to see Anne Bremner treated precisely as they would be in a like case. And their kids safe and out of harm’s way from any drunk drivers.

Respect the state’s open-records laws in DUI case of Seattle attorney

Do not allow creative arguments employed to evade the state’s public-disclosure law, in a case of suspected drunken driving, be used to compromise its intent.

Creative, aggressive lawyering intended to deny access to public records is an insult to citizens who have made open records and open government a priority in Washington.

Seattle attorney Anne Bremner, 52, is inventing arguments to stifle release of a deputy’s report describing her June arrest on suspicion of drunken driving.

However mortified she might be by the events of early June 4, personal embarrassment is not an exemption under the state Public Disclosure Act.

A King County Superior Court judge cleared the report, and selected law-enforcement videos, for release, but the decision was immediately appealed by Bremner’s lawyer to the state Court of Appeals in Seattle.

Another challenge is based on the apparently creative application of a King County District Court administrative rule procedure. Invocation of the rule comes out of the blue, especially for the King County Sheriff’s Office, which releases 17,000 case reports a year under state law and has never heard that argument used.

The Sheriff’s Office can withhold reports if release might compromise an investigation, but that is not a factor with Bremner.

Access to reports is couched in terms of release to the news media, but it fundamentally represents a conduit to the public and citizens with their own legal issues. Tamping down those rules serves no one, especially the philosophical and practical importance of transparency in government.

The court system showed an abundance of caution by shifting the judicial review to the Spokane appellate court, away from the professional and personal ties between the local bar and bench. The physical distance can be cut by teleconferencing, but an appropriate measure of detachment is maintained.

Release of the deputy’s report is routine and should be treated that way.

Rules and procedures are created for orderly, uniform application of justice, not to allow their exploitation to hide things from the public.

 

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Amid Growing Seattle Criticism, Anne Bremner Tries Another Move To Keep Video And Records Hidden

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the new Seattle Times report and the rapidly-proliferating (currently all negative) comments. Here’s the key passage.

Bremner’s attorney, Tyler Firkins, filed a motion Monday in King County District Court in Shoreline, seeking to use a rule that governs which records the court can release to bar the Sheriff’s Office from releasing the report. A Superior Court judge already has ruled the report can be released under the state Public Disclosure Act, a decision that Bremner is appealing.

At issue in the new motion is a rule known as Administrative Rule for Courts of Limited Jurisdiction No. 9, or ARLJ 9, which exempts district-court officials from releasing police reports unless they have been admitted into evidence, incorporated into a court pleading or have been placed into public record. In district court, a police report isn’t considered evidence unless it is submitted as an exhibit during trial or a plea hearing, something that hasn’t happened in the Bremner case.

According to Firkins’ filing, Bremner is seeking to have that rule extended to the Sheriff’s Office to prevent it from releasing the report.

“We release 17,000 case reports a year under the [state] public-disclosure statute and we’ve never heard this argument in the past,” said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart.

Our lawyers here remark that that state and county rules would trump any local township rules. Seattle is pretty well certain to see all those records. Especially as the case is now moved to the Spokane Court of Appeals, which at 280 miles away from Seattle should be safe from the attempted exertion of any influence. 

Our previous posts and comments here and here explain how this development involving Anne Bremner goes to the guts of the motives and credibility of the most ardent pro-Knox TV talking-head in the U.S. Good people in the US she may have influenced or misled may number up in the millions, not to mention those hurt in Italy and the UK. 

Many of the comments under this and previous Seattle media reports come from other lawyers, first-hand or second-hand, who obviously believe that Seattle deserves very much better. This is one.

Some lawyer friends with combined experience of 60 years say they have never seen this kind of flagrant abuse of court rules and the appeals process by someone for whom the facts and evidence are so clearly damning. It appears the appeal to the Seattle appellate judge was a brazen attempt to capitalize on the influence of friends on the system. Appears this judge could smell the unethical ramifications and wisely passed it on.

The tenacity of the prosecutors, the Sheriff’s office, and the Superior Court judge to treat this self proclaimed important person with big connections the same way others are treated is commendable. They may not be invited to the next party of drunken judges and celebrity barristers. The state FOI statute clearly trumps a local court procedural housekeeping rule.

And this is another.

Kudos to the Court of Appeals Commissioner for transferring the appeal to Spokane, to the Kenmore Prosecutor for (finally) filing charges, and the Sheriff’s Office for standing their ground on the evidence as they see it.

I just hope the transparency and even-handedness continues, that influence doesn’t rear its head behind the scenes, and that justice prevails in the end.  This has become a much bigger issue than just a DUI charge.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Could Knox Campaigner Anne Bremner Be Facing A Prison Term And Disbarment?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Anne Bremner has just been charged with drunk driving in Kenmore north-east of downtown Seattle. 

Our legal friends observed loud legal warning bells going off for Anne Bremner when they reviewed an apparent long list of past driving transgressions in the comments under this post.

One remarked that if she is shown in court to be a serial law-breaker, and an unrepentant danger to the public, a judge could (actually, he said should) really throw the book at her. That may even be for her own good. 

A few days ago there was a hearing concerning a certain “Jane Doe” who wanted suppression of a police dash-cam video of a driver apparently drunk and some police records of an arrest by King County police.

Both of the main Seattle newspapers in addition to two Seattle TV stations were now wanting the records and video unsealed by the court.  That particular Jane Doe seemed to adopt a surprisingly aggressive attitude toward the King County police, demanding the arresting officer’s service record for one thing.

Louder legal warning bells were observed going off.

There is no sign in Kenmore (as there is no sign in Perugia) that going head-to-head with good police officers really does pay off. Now the Seattle PI is reporting she is indicted..

High-profile attorney charged with drunken driving

By Scott Guttierrez

Seattle-PI Dot Com Staff

Prominent Seattle lawyer and TV legal analyst Anne Bremner has been charged with drunken driving, according to court records, despite her claims that she suffered a head injury in a hit-and-run accident and was mistakenly arrested.

On June 4, Bremner, 52, was stopped in Kenmore after driving on three flat tires. She was returning from a dinner party at a judge’s home in Seattle. The charge was filed Wednesday in King County District Court in Shoreline. Her arraignment is set for Sept. 1.

Bremner, a partner at Stafford Frey Cooper who often represents police officers accused of misconduct, has been fighting the release of the police report stemming from her arrest after it was requested under open records laws by several local media outlets, including seattlepi.com.

King County Superior Court Judge Laura Inveen ruled last week that most of the records should be made public.  The judge, however, immediately stayed that decision as Bremner’s attorney announced an appeal of the decision.

Bremner claims police failed to respond to two 911 calls some time before her midnight arrest in Kenmore and, in a statement submitted to the court on her behalf by her doctor, alleged that she was manhandled by the sheriff’s deputy. In a complaint filed under the name “Jane Doe,” her lawyer argued she would suffer “substantial and irreparable harm to her personal and professional reputation if the unsubstantiated DUI allegations” were made public….

She has been one of the most vocal advocates for Amanda Knox, the University of Washington student convicted of killing her roommate in Perugia, Italy. Knox’s attorneys are appealing…..

To support their contention that Bremner suffered a head injury, her attorneys in the filed a statement by local psychiatrist Dr. Philip Lindsay.

Lindsay wrote in court documents that Bremner had been the “victim of a hit and run driver at 50 mph and had suffered a concussion,” and argued that the deputy who stopped her in Kenmore “rushed to judgment.”

“She was mistakenly arrested for DUI based solely upon the symptoms of traumatic brain injury,” Lindsay wrote the court.

Attorneys for the county called the doctor’s statements “grossly misleading” and contended Bremner never reported a hit-and-run crash or head injury until well after her arrest.

Monday, August 09, 2010

The Judges’ Sentencing Report For The Guilty Verdicts In The Case Of Meredith Kercher

Posted by Our Main Posters

This is the report of Judge Massei and his colleagues, now translated into English.

This was a joint effort of PMF and TJMK and all who worked so hard on the report are active on Perugia Murder File and are or will be posters here on True Justice For Meredith Kercher.

The five months of work by all of us, on three continents, was done in memory of Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, who was known to her friends as Mez.

Rest peacefully, Mez. We’d have been so honored to have been your friends.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Anne Bremner Arrested, Locked Up, Now Complaining (Surprise, Surprise) The Cops Got It Wrong

Posted by Peter Quennell

Seattle lawyer Anne Bremner was arrested and locked up for apparent drunk-driving and now seems to be scrambling for arcane excuses.

What a surprise. Here is the report by Sara Jean Green of the Seattle Times with some very beleagured PR spin among the generally pretty sarcastic and hostile comments. 

Bremner is a showboating Seattle lawyer who injected herself into Amanda Knox’s case nearly three years ago.  She created a notoriously inaccurate website on the case and more than anyone set the Friends Of Amanda alive.

Ever since the FOA have made their mainstay in commentary on the case disingenuous misstatements of the evidence and the contemptuous sliming of Prosecutor Mignini and seemingly pretty well all things Italian.

Bremner herself was featured in a TV network rant about Italian cops disturbing the crime-scene (the upstairs apartment where Meredith and Knox lived) when in fact they were filmed clearing the way into the downstairs apartment (where Meredith and Knox did not lived).

Her claims and smears over the past three years have been immensely hurtful to a very large number of people in Italy and the UK, and the general thrust of the FOA campaign was thoroughly disliked by Knox’s own lawyers in Perugia. .

It is hard to see how her muddled and often very nasty claims ever did Amanda Knox any good. This sounds like poetic justice for sure.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Oregon’s David Wu: Another Opportunistic American Congressman That Takes An Anti-Italy Stance

Posted by Peter Quennell

Are there REALLY no Italian-Americans in Oregon’s Congressional District 1 (map below) which is Mr Wu’s political district? 

Would someone please ASK him?!

This undated take on the case by David Wu, a letter to a constituent, was posted a few days ago on the New York Daily News website.

We already know that the Italian justice system has been almost excruciatingly fair, that the evidence is massive and conclusive, and that there is a snowball’s chance in hell of the US federal government even raising this case with the Italian government.

Let alone using any actual political capital to try to spring Amanda Knox in face of what was a fair trial.

Nevertheless, complete with nasty attitude, errors, and illusory claims, Congressman Wu’s letter is being feverishly spread around by the adolescent Knox groupies. Together with the claim that somehow, therefore, Amanda Knox’s support is growing. 

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the fair treatment of Amanda Knox, an American student who was found guilty in an Italian court for killing her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, while studying abroad in Italy in 2007.

I appreciate knowing your thoughts on this important matter. In December 2009, Ms. Knox, a native of Seattle, was convicted by an Italian jury on charges of murder and sexual violence. During the trial, the prosecution claimed that Ms. Knox killed her roommate with the help of her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and an Italian drug-dealer named Rudy Guede. Ms. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison.

I was saddened by the verdict, and I agree that many facets of the prosecution’s case against Ms. Knox raise serious questions about her guilt.

In April 2009, Ms. Knox’s attorney, Ted Simon, stated before national media, “There’s brand new information presented as part of Amanda’s appeal by another person…that states for the first time that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not present or were not involved.”

Mr. Simon said that he is confident that new evidence in the 200-page appeal of her murder conviction will force Italian courts to take a hard look at the validity of her prison sentence.

Although the United States government’s ability to influence Italian criminal procedure is limited, I believe that Ms. Knox deserves a fair trial, especially in light of the defense’s new evidence.

I will be closely monitoring Ms. Knox’s appeal, and I will seize any opportunity to stand up for the values of fundamental justice and the rule of law. Thank you again for sharing your concerns with me.

As this tragic case plays out on the international stage, I will keep your views in mind.  If I may be be of additional assistance, please call my Oregon office at 503-326-2901 or 800-422-4003.

With warm regards, David Wu Member of Congress

Below: Congressional District 1 is David Wu’s home district

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

That Widely Watched LA7 TV Interview With Giuliano Mignini - Herewith A Full English Translation

Posted by ziaK

This is a translation of the YouTube video posted by my fellow poster True North two weeks ago.

Many readers asked for a translation of what Mr Mignini said in that interview, and True North, who has pretty good Italian but is not a professional translator, requested some help from the translation team. The sound of the video is not always crystal clear but this appears to accurately reflect what was said. 

Male interviewer: In the biological evidence, is there any one item which is the one which you consider, especially in terms of the trial, to have had the most value?

Giuliano Mignini: I think that, in terms of the trial, the most important were the knife, the bra hook and also the biological traces in the bathroom. From the point of view of the trial, the knife certainly links the two defendants and the victim. Therefore it was (interrupted).

Andrea Vogt: There was low copy number, and that’s not normal, is it, to use DNA when there’s low copy number?

Giuliano Mignini: However, I hold that those traces were nonetheless indisputable traces. That is, there was not an absolute huge amount, in terms that are perhaps more understandable [ndt: to an Italian speaker, “low copy number” is not necessaryily understandable, because it is an English term]. The trace might be really high, with a high quantity, or it may be very low, but however the trace may be, it was never reasonably explained in any other way. That knife was never touched by the victim. She was never (inaudible: possibly “at Raffaele’s”] during the period that the two young folk, the two defendants, knew each other. It was a very short period: we think the relationship was (inaudible) or a week.

Male interviewer: Certainly. However, (inaudible) limited, either a contamination in the place of the crime or a contamination in the laboratory? This is not meant as a criticism of the work, however it is a danger that we technicians have which we must confront.

Giuliano Mignini: Yes. Well, that point about the knife comes from the specific questions of Professor Finsi himself, and of the Superintendant (Parebiochi?), and it was clearly shown that that knife was collected with absolute”¦ that is, there was no possibility of exposure to contact [with the victim?]. Because it was found in Raffaele’s house and it was take with all precautions. This was shown in (inaudible). I was keen to show that (inaudible) that knife.

Andrea Vogt: Also the hook was very controversial because you found it 46 days after.

Giuliano Mignini: Yes, yes. I know. I understand. This, alas, can happen when there are places that are so full of objects, full of”¦ When one is doing an analysis of this type, it can happen that (inaudible) is moved. However, it remained within that room. And (Andrea Vogt interrupts). And then, if there is contamination, that means that Sollecito’s DNA was somewhere within that room. We’re still there (i.e. at the same conclusion). I think that all the evidence was limited [ndt: to the one place?], and the first findings were of an investigative nature. In particular, that includes the numerous contradictions made by Knox. Which were then repeated during the investigation, during the interrogation in jail, and in my opinion also during the questioning and counter-questioning in court.

Andrea Vogt: I want to talk a bit about the motive.

Giuliano Mignini: As a first impression of the [inaudible: crime?] it was clearly, it appeared clearly to be a crime of a sexual nature. It was extremely clear. A young woman, killed in that way, and almost completely stripped/naked.

Male interviewer: Excuse me, but on the contrary, at times I have heard attributed (inaudible) a different reason, a fight which ended badly, and then instead a transformation of the crime to put forward the idea that it was a sexual murder. Also because, in fact, the position of Rudy, who was however found guilty, also from the beginning changed a bit. There’s his responsibility.

Giuliano Mignini: Also Rudy gave indications which then changed a bit. Rudi too, for example, said that there was an appointment with Meredith. Then in later interrogations he said that Meredith had asked for him to be there, and (Male interviewer interrupts: The reconstruction [by Nabil?]: what could have happened?). Yes, according to me, there was a situation, a progressive situation of disagreement between the two girls. That seems undeniable to me.