Public Defender Asks For Mistrial Over Harrah's Murder Trial Coverage

JOLIET, IL — On Thursday morning, outside the presence of the jury, Will County Public Defender Shenonda Tisdale asked Judge Dave Carlson to declare a mistrial for her client, first-degree murder defendant Robert Watson, citing Joliet Patch's coverage of the case as her reason.

In Courtroom 405, Tisdale said that she objected to multiple headlines that Joliet Patch used in its stories. One headline read, "Harrah's Murder Trial Underway: Robert Watson Disagrees He's Insane."

Tisdale also told the judge she disagreed with Patch's choice to publish of a photo of her client, Watson, being handcuffed in the courtroom by the Will County Sheriff's deputies.

Watson has chosen to wear a navy Will County Jail jumpsuit, even though he has been given the opportunity to wear dress clothes, as is customary for criminal defendants. On Thursday morning, Judge Carlson again asked Watson if he wanted to wear dress clothes for his trial.

Watson gave the judge a one-word response.

"No," Watson answered.

Tisdale told the judge that Patch's photo of her client being put into handcuffs amounts to dehumanizing Watson.

"He is still a human being," Tisdale argued. "I believe it is dehumanizing him."

In addition, Tisdale said she took issue with Patch's second story from Wednesday, headlined, "Victim's Blood In Harrah's Hallway Leaves Juror In Tears."

The Will County State's Attorney's Office prosecutors disagreed with Tisdale's arguments, and Carlson also rejected her motion for a mistrial.

Carlson told Tisdale her argument about the juror who asked for a tissue upon seeing the photos of Sam Burgarino's pool of blood was based on "accusations, assumptions and innuendos."

Recalling a high-profile Will County criminal case involving the deaths of several children from years ago, Carlson told Tisdale, "I cried. I couldn't keep it inside."

Just because a juror cries or shows emotion, the judge remarked, does that mean the judge is supposed to pull them aside and ask them to tell me how they are feeling?

"Can you imagine what that does?" Carlson asked Tisdale.

The judge informed Tisdale that Joliet Patch has followed all his guidelines regarding what photographs are acceptable to publish. Carlson is allowing the news media to publish photos of individual trial exhibits as well as key court personnel, including the lawyers, the defendant and himself.

For this particular trial, publishing news photographs of the jury and individual witnesses has been prohibited, the judge explained.

Carlson also pointed out he is not allowing any video recording of the trial proceedings or live blogging from inside the courtroom by journalists.

The judge told Tisdale there is an expectation across Illinois that the courts will be granting more public access to the press for coverage of their courtroom proceedings — not less.

Carlson said he also reviewed Joliet Patch's coverage from this week's trial, and had no issues with Patch's reporting and the selection of photos Patch has chosen to publish.

The judge said he read an article in The Herald-News, Joliet's print newspaper, from Wednesday's trial and did not have any problems with that, either.

Carlson took issue with Tisdale's request to remove the juror who was crying on Wednesday afternoon when photos of the victim's blood were entered into the record as trial exhibits and displayed on the large video screen in Carlson's courtroom.

Tisdale argued that the female juror, who needed a tissue because she was crying, is biased in favor of the prosecution, and therefore she should be replaced with one of the remaining alternates.

"Based on her behavior, I believe she is biased at this point," Tisdale told Judge Carlson. The juror who cried "clearly showed sympathy toward the State's case. She's tainted the jury pool," Tisdale claimed.