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	Trial of Toledo Priest Accused of Killing Nun Is Magnet for Media News Organizations Overflow Courtroom By James Ewinger Cleveland Plain Dealer April 30, 2006 http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf? /base/news/1146386411269970.xml&coll=2 Toledo - The drama of a priest on trial for a nun's murder is spectacle enough, but it has a lot of help. Local reporters say Toledo has seen nothing like it in 20 years, and they are talking about the media attention, not the anomaly of a priest on trial. The Rev. Gerald Robinson's trial enters its second week of testimony Monday, and the tone inside the Lucas County courtroom is expected to be as restrained and dignified as it has been since jury selection began in mid-April. Outside, though, the media presence is felt immediately. Every TV station in Toledo, NBC's "Dateline," CBS News, CNN and Court TV, the Blade newspaper, and reporters from other news outlets from well beyond Ohio's other large city on the lake are here. They line more than a quarter of the courthouse grounds with vehicles great and small. Public metered parking is off-limits for the trial's duration - the meters are cloaked with red hoods. Bob Jones of Toledo's WTOL-TV, says he has never seen this level of attention in the 12 years he has covered justice issues for the CBS affiliate. The media have an overflow room lined with TV monitors and video-editing equipment, with the occasional print reporter ticking away at a laptop. Twenty of the 45 seats inside the courtroom are reserved for media, matching the number set aside for people associated with the prosecution and defense. Just a handful of seats are left for the public - this after Judge Thomas Osowik moved the case to a larger courtroom. Security is tight at the courthouse, but not because of this trial. Lucas County was years ahead of other large court systems in Ohio when it closed most entrances around 1994 and placed metal detectors at the two remaining doors. It remains democratic in their use: Even Osowik and the lawyers have to empty their pockets with each entrance to the building. The system is in the hands of men and women who work for the judges, but have also been deputized by the sheriff, making them full-fledged peace officers. Most Ohio courthouses rely on uniformed deputies who work for the sheriff, and the judges' long arms tend to be civilian bailiffs who many times were selected by local party leaders. The result here is far from a circus-like atmosphere inside the courthouse. That phrase has more resonance with the media than with most of the public because the U.S. Supreme Court invoked the very image - and the media's feeding frenzy - when it overturned Dr. Sam Shepherd's 1954 conviction for his wife's slaying. The case helped rein in the way journalists cover trials. In 1954, for instance, reporters and photographers could get right up to the jury box, shoot pictures of the panel and publish their names and addresses before the trial ever started. Now, in many ways, jurors are shielded from reporters. Osowik's courtroom temporarily contains two Court TV cameras that feed video to everyone else. One is manual and the other is remotely controlled but both are forbidden to shoot toward the jury box - a statewide bar that usually is of less significance because most trials are not covered at all. But Robinson's is not most trials. Because of the news coverage, Osowik initially summoned 250 prospective jurors - the largest the county has ever seen - in case many people already had formed opinions on the case. And because of the intense media interest, Osowik took the extra step of formally ordering no interviews of witnesses during the trial. Lawyers for both sides have undertaken their own, self-imposed gag order and all seven lawyers - three men for the state, and three men and a woman for the defense - have stuck by it. The trial is expected to continue for a few more weeks. That's brisk compared with some of the courtroom sieges in California that have grabbed national attention in recent years, but lengthy by Ohio standards. To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: jewinger@plaind.com, 216-999-3905
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