Media not a concern for judge

PALMER – With trial set to start next week, lawyers in the Frank Adams murder case are taking care of some last-minute motions.

Adams was stopped on the Glenn Highway in July, 2007. Alaska State Troopers found the body of Stacey Jonston, 42, in the trunk of his red Suzuki hatchback. Now he faces four felony charges, including murder.

On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler ruled that, despite publicity leading up to Adams’ trial, the case will move forward in Palmer.

Adams’ attorney, Scott Sterling, had argued the trial should be held in some other jurisdiction so a jury, untainted by the publicity, would be easier to find.

“Confidential information about Mr. Adams was revealed to the public,” Sterling said about one Frontiersman article in particular, written based on pre-trial filings in the case.

“The barn door’s been open and the horse is about three-fourths of the way out the door.”

Though Sterling didn’t outright say what the article contained, he appeared to be referring to a piece discussing Adams’ trial in 1978, in which at age 16 Adams was convicted of beating Col. Robert Cassel to death in Eagle River.

In opposition to Sterling’s argument, prosecutor Rachel Gernat argued that if cases can be tried in Dillingham and other small Alaska communities, where juries likely know intimate personal details about the accused, then certainly Adams can be tried fairly in Palmer.

“I think sometimes when we do this job we assume that the public is as interested in these articles as we are,” Gernat said.

Cutler, in handing down her ruling, said that it’s just a “plain fact” that the print media isn’t what it used to be. Just 20 years ago an article like the one in question would have been a huge cause for concern.

Given the decline in readership, these days, “We’re only worried about it 10 or 20 percent as much,” Cutler said. “My experience tells me that it will be highly unlikely if more than 10 percent of jurors connect what they hear [during the jury-selection process] to something they read in the paper.”

The rest of Wednesday’s hearing was spent mainly gearing up for trial. Attorneys discussed what will go into the questionnaire jurors will be asked to fill out on their first day and went over the schedule of the trial.

Gernat said she thinks the trial will last four to five weeks.

Jurors will be called in on Tuesday and questioned individually the following day.

“We might have a jury by a week from Wednesday,” Sterling said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.