Just smoke, or fire as well? A very odd day

Those who have been reading this blog for awhile, and/or who are active in the Twin Cities handgun carry community, are familiar with the case of Jeffrey Mark Gort, the Woodbury, Minnesota police officer who experienced a negligent discharge of his duty pistol in a St. Cloud hotel room on August 2, 2006. For those who aren't up to speed on this incident, see my quick summation and analysis of the St. Cloud Police report here, then come back. The main point made in that analysis is that since Officer Gort was off duty and out of his jurisdiction when the incident occurred, and since he neither bothered to call 911 nor check and see if his errant round had injured or killed someone, but instead sat on his bed and ruminated for some half an hour while others did so, he should be treated in the criminal justice system in the same way as a private citizen, if they had had a similar discharge and subsequent (in)actions. My sense at the time was that if this had happened to a carry permit holder, we would be hearing cries of "See, we told you it was a bad idea" and "Only law-enforcement officers are professional enough to carry guns", along with having the permit holder's name and picture splashed all over the news media for maximum effect.

Officer Gort had already gotten a break from some of the attention a private citizen would have received. Contemporary news accounts did not identify him by name or print a photo of him. The Woodbury Police Department, Gort's employer, has steadfastly refused to provide any details of their investigation, including the name of the officer involved. According to correspondence I received from them dated October 8, 2007, "final disposition" has not been reached in the internal investigation, some 14 months after the incident occurred.

The St. Cloud Police Department, as well as the St. Cloud City Attorney's office, have been much more accommodating and responsive, answering all of my inquiries about the case promptly and completely. Fortuitously calling the city attorney's office for updated information about the case yesterday, I was told that Officer Gort was scheduled to have a "settlement conference" at the Stearns County Courthouse this afternoon. Having not much else to do today, I decided to take a nice autumn drive there and watch the proceedings for myself.

I arrived at the courthouse, found which courtroom the case was going to be heard in, and went and sat down. The room was packed with 20-30 cases waiting to be heard. The judge was efficient and friendly while dispatching the cases, mostly DUI and car insurance lapse cases, with a couple of domestic assault guilty pleas sprinkled in. I digress, however.

After about 3 hours, only two parties were left in the courtroom, myself and a young male, obviously not Officer Gort, who was waiting to have his case heard. I was just beginning to wonder if I had gone to the wrong courtroom when the bailiff, seeing that there was only one case file left to adjudicate, wandered over to me to make sure that I wasn't someone who had fallen between the cracks of their system. I responded that I was there to observe a specific case, and gave her the printout I had made of the case number and name. She took it up to the clerk, they had a brief discussion, and she came back with a sheepish look on her face. She apologized to me and said (paraphrased), "Oh, that case was continued in the judge's chambers. It looks like they're going to reschedule it for another time. This sometimes happens when there's a conflict of interest, or if the judge knows the defendant, or something like that." She then apologized again for my waiting around for nothing, and went back to her desk.

Hmmm. I had just watched somewhere over 20 cases get handled, and off the top of my head, approximately one quarter were continued in some manner, whether due to paperwork, scheduling conflicts, the defendant changing his plea and requesting a jury trial, pending presentencing investigations, and so on. All of these were done in open court, save one - Officer Gort's. Why did his case get such special treatment when every other case on the docket was dealt with in public, even the complex and serious ones?

Additionally, I find it extemely hard to believe, although I suppose it's theoretically possible, that there could be a conflict of interest between the judge and Officer Gort, given that St. Cloud and Woodbury are about 2 hours away by car from each other. I'm fairly confident that Gort has never applied for a search warrant from the judge, or anything like that. Even if there was a conflict, why would the judge wait until the "settlement conference" to suddenly find a reason to recuse himself, after handling all of the preliminary aspects of the case?

Based on the other settlement conferences I watched today, Gort was scheduled to come in, make his plea, take his medicine, and be done with it. Why didn't that happen?

I don't have enough information yet to make any specific accusations, and my knowledge of law and courtroom procedures is of the layman variety, but something just isn't adding up here. I don't know if it was due to my phone call the day before or for some other reason, but someone decided to cancel Officer Gort's plea today, and at the last minute, to boot. I could be totally off base and mistaken, but there sure is an awful lot of smoke here, and the handling of this case was definitely not normal, based on my observations today. The guilty look on the bailiff's face alone confirmed that for me, and by itself was enough to raise my suspicion level.

I will follow up with the St. Cloud City Attorney's Office on Monday, to find out if the case has indeed been rescheduled, or if I fell for some sort of coverup story. I already feel like a chump for sitting in court all afternoon while naively expecting a case on a public docket to be heard and adjudicated.