A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
Lenio’s attorney, public defender Brent Getty, raised that question in Vince Devlin’s latest report in the Missoulian. Lenio’s detractors made incendiary accusations yesterday in a report by Bill Morlin, who writes for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog, that Lenio violated the terms of his bail. Writes Devlin:
Lenio’s attorney, public defender Brent Getty, said he had no comment on the allegation that his client had violated the terms of his release.
“But I would reiterate, at the same point, that I am getting very concerned about publicity over this case in the last week, and its effect on Mr. Lenio’s right to a fair trial if this goes forward,” Getty said.
According to Morlin:
David Joseph Lenio was busy this past summer, re-Tweeting 348 messages – many of them anti-Semitic and hate-filled – and defying the judge’s order, even as his defense attorney and Flathead County, MT, prosecutors reportedly discussed a plea deal that could allow him to duck a felony conviction and get his firearms returned.
While authorities are apparently unaware of Lenio’s current social media presence, they still haven’t said publicly how the 28-year-old accused Twitter terrorist got access to post hate messages on Facebook while locked in a Montana jail cell where there is supposed to be no Internet access.
Now, the possibility of a plea-deal for Lenio is drawing national attention with an Internet petition drive — already with 5,797 signatures, including 324 from Montanans — strongly opposing any plea bargain that leaves Lenio facing anything short of a felony conviction.
“Tell Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan: ‘Do not settle for any outcome that might allow Lenio to own guns again,’” the petition by the Coalition to End Stop Gun Violence says.
Ladd Everitt, the coalition’s director of communications, told Hatewatch that only a felony conviction will prohibit Lenio from purchasing and owning firearms. If the prosecutor agrees to a misdemeanor plea or pre-trial diversion that allows Lenio to get his guns back, “then blood will be on [the prosecutor’s] hands if Lenio takes advantage of the situation to carry out his declared plans.”
Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry, reports Devlin, is skeptical of accusations that Lenio could have obtained a smartphone while he was imprisoned in Flathead County’s calaboose.
I believe most jurors are smarter and more responsible than judges and attorneys suppose. The notion that pretrial publicity taints the jury pool angers me. I suspect Lenio could get a fair trial in Flathead County provided the judge kept control of the trial. This situation isn’t at the Sam Sheppard level … yet.
But given conventional wisdom and court practices, if the case did go to trial, Getty would have a good argument for a change of venue. He might even have an argument for sequestering the jury (locking up the jurors without a trial, and depriving them of access to the outside world, a reprehensible practice).
I wish the people who want Lenio convicted of a felony would have the decency and intellectual discipline to withhold judgement until after they’ve heard his defense. They’re making a mockery of the right to a fair trial, revealing themselves as hotheads with little regard for civil liberties, and taking a step they shouldn’t take down the road to Vigilanteville.