Blake’s defense cries foul over writer at crime scene

Unfettered access is the journalist’s Holy Grail. But when a reporter’s deep engagement with a subject unexpectedly makes him part of the story, it is a problematic prize.

That is the situation in which former Los Angeles Times reporter Miles Corwin has found himself since his unprecedented access to the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division became an issue in Robert Blake’s preliminary hearing and in the civil suit filed against the actor by the family of Bonny Lee Bakley, his murdered wife.

On Friday, Blake’s defense attorney, Thomas Mesereau Jr., hammered a police witness over the writer’s presence at virtually every critical step in the investigation. Bakley’s family, meanwhile, is attempting to compel the journalist to testify in the wrongful death suit they are pursuing against Blake.

What began as a journalistic project has become a window on the risks and benefits of a law enforcement agency opening itself to reportorial scrutiny.

Corwin is the author of two well-received nonfiction books: “And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City Students” and “The Killing Season: A Summer Inside an LAPD Homicide Division,” an inside look at the work of two LAPD detectives.

Nearly three years ago, then-Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks ordered his department’s Robbery-Homicide Division to give Corwin unparalleled access to its inner workings so that he could write a book on the unit.

Det. Ronald Ito -- the lead investigator in the Blake case -- testified Friday that his commander told him Corwin’s work “would be a good way to get the information out to the public that we had nothing to hide ... and it would be a positive effect on this department.”

Ito also said he took Corwin to the crime scene and allowed him to accompany detectives while they interviewed witnesses and searched Blake’s house. During one interview, the detective testified, he identified the writer as his “partner.” Corwin also was allowed to handle letters and photographs that are part of the evidence and was privy to unreleased details of the investigation, including forensic results, Ito testified.

The LAPD was not the only law enforcement agency aware of Corwin’s access to the investigation. A videotape of the search of Blake’s house shows Corwin standing next to Pat Dixon, acting head deputy of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s Major Crimes Division. Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory A. Dohi, who is prosecuting Blake, also was present at the search. According to Sandi Gibbons, the district attorney’s spokeswoman, Dixon did not know who Corwin was, though Dohi did. “We were not pleased to find a writer so deeply involved in the case, but at that particular point -- before charges were filed -- we had no standing to do anything about it.”

Friday, when Dohi objected to Mesereau’s questions about Corwin, Superior Court Judge Lloyd Nash overruled him. “Bringing along an author presents the possibility of contamination of evidence,” said Nash. “It’s fraught with all sorts of problems.”

A source knowledgeable about Blake’s defense, who asked not to be identified, argued that those problems fall into four areas: Corwin’s mere presence gave investigators a special incentive to make a case against a celebrity defendant so that their place in his book would be enhanced. Allowing a civilian to handle evidence raises chain-of-custody and contamination problems. The publication of Corwin’s book before Blake is tried, which Ito testified he expects, could prejudice potential jurors.

Finally, the defense may argue that the writer’s presence at the search might have provided a motive for evidence tampering. When the 9mm handgun used in the crime was recovered, its multi-round magazine contained only three shells. During the search of Blake’s house, a 100-round box of 9mm ammunition with just three shells missing was recovered. At the time, only the police and Corwin knew the significance of that, and the discovery appeared to be potentially important circumstantial evidence against the actor. However, subsequent tests, according to the defense source and Gibbons, showed that the bullets from the murder weapon were packaged by the factory, but those seized in the search were shells that had been fired and reloaded.

Suddenly, the circumstantial evidence pointed to a strange coincidence. The incentive for tampering, speculated the defense source, would have been to make the search a more dramatic element in Corwin’s book.

“One unscrupulous officer could have pocketed the three missing rounds and then left it for another honest detective to find,” the source said.

Gibbons called such speculation “just plain silly. Maybe the bullets are missing because somebody used them.”

Corwin would not comment. His attorney, Alonzo Wickers -- whose firm also represents The Times -- said that a publication date for Corwin’s book has not been set. “It is clearly in the public interest,” Wickers said, “when reporters are allowed to observe police investigations. It increases everyone’s confidence that the police are following all appropriate procedures because there is a neutral observer on the scene. When someone is watching, the possibility of police or prosecutorial misconduct is diminished.”

Wickers also sees no merit in the argument that his client’s presence gave the LAPD an incentive to make a case against another celebrity. “To the contrary,” he said, “the fact that people are watching makes officials behave as professionally as possible. It would be disappointing if, at the end of the day, the LAPD, which has been criticized for being too secretive, were hurt for trying to make itself more open.”

Wickers, who has resisted attempts to force Corwin to testify in the civil suit, said that if the writer were called to testify in the criminal trial, “we would assert his protections under both the California shield law and the federal reporter’s privilege.” The state statue holds that a journalist may be called to testify by the accused only if they possess information clearly relevant to the heart of the defense, which may be obtained in no other fashion.

Attorney Lee Levine, another 1st Amendment expert, pointed out that in the case of Wilson vs. Layne, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a search illegal because investigators were accompanied by a reporter and photographer when they entered a private home with a warrant. “There is at least a flavor in the court’s reasoning in that case that what might be characterized as a collaboration between press and law enforcement infects the criminal justice system in a way that is detrimental to the accused,” he said.

Because of the Wilson case, said Jane Kirtley, the Silha professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, “I’m just amazed that any law enforcement agency would allow a reporter to be present when they executed a search warrant. In this instance, the LAPD was ill-advised to take this calculated risk to obtain what they hoped would be good publicity. It appears to have blown up in their face.”

Whether that turns out to be the case hangs on two things: the outcome of Blake’s criminal case and the contents of Corwin’s forthcoming book. Until then, more than one jury is out.