Thursday, July 11, 1996
Irvin Judge Denounces TV Station's "Tampering"
Promos; Principals Deny Investigation
By JAIME ARON
Associated Press
(July 11, 1996)
DALLAS - The judge in Michael Irvin's cocaine possession trial
Wednesday denounced a television station's announcements promoting
an upcoming report on possible jury tampering in the Dallas Cowboys
star's case.
State District Judge Manny Alvarez delayed the beginning of proceedings
for 90 minutes while he individually questioned panelists, then
decided to keep the jury intact.
Alvarez reminded the group of his pre-trial comments that they
not be exposed to media coverage of the case. He did not mention
in court whether he was considering sequestering the jury, which
he has said could happen.
"I asked if they saw anything on the networks, especially
Channel 5, about this case. All 12 said no," Alvarez said.
Attorneys for both sides said they had never heard of such allegations
until the KXAS promo, which began Tuesday night for a report
scheduled to run Thursday.
The station's advertisements have said the Dallas County district
attorney's office is looking into the allegations, but lead prosecutor
Mike Gillett said that's not true.
"I have no knowledge of that. Nor do any of the lawyers,"
said Gillett, an assistant district attorney. "There has
been no effort by anybody to tamper with this jury. We are not
investigating."
Before the trial, KXAS broadcasted hidden-camera footage purchased
from an informant for $6,000 that showed Irvin allegedly discussing
the purchase and use of cocaine.
A telephone message left with KXAS news director Dave Overton
was not immediately returned. The station has been silent on
most issues surrounding their investigations of Irvin.
Once the trial resumed, Irving police detective James Hallum
continued testifying about the evidence seized during a March
4 raid of a motel room occupied by Irvin, two topless dancers
and former Cowboy Alfredo Roberts.
Hallum, a narcotics investigator, said four separate caches of
cocaine weighed 10.5 grams. Irvin is charged with second-degree
felony cocaine possession, which involves any amount of the substance
between 4 grams and 200 grams. It's punishable by probation to
20 years in prison.
The biggest chunk is a 9-gram rock of crack cocaine - described
as being the size of a golf ball - and has a street value of
$75-$120, making it worth between $675 and $1,080, Hallum said.
Jurors got to hold that package of evidence and several others,
plus pictures of the individual contents of each of those evidence
bags, on Wednesday as the prosecution had Hallum go over the
weights of each package.
Lead defense attorney Kevin Clancy again focused his cross-examination
of Hallum on .0005 gram of cocaine found on a test tube that
was the only item seized from Irvin's belongings. The vial was
atop Irvin's jewelry bag.
On Tuesday, Clancy placed a package of artificial sweetener on
a plate and put it into a plastic bag - which is how officers
recovered the evidence - to show how a powder could spread between
items.
Prosecutor Aaron Wiley suggested that the substance could not
move between the plates unless they were broken (and they weren't).
Clancy later had Hallum remind the court he had testified that
Tuesday's demonstration showed how the substance could shift.
Hallum also said he never tested the vial for cocaine because
it was kept in a sealed evidence bag with other drug paraphernalia
and those items are never tested.
He also said that because of the scant amount, such a test would
not be possible.
"If it's just a residue amount, you could use up the residue
amount doing a field test," Hallum said.
All content copyright 1996, AP, The Abilene
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