Change of venue denied in murder case

By Ted Pennekamp

A motion for a change of venue was denied by Crawford County Circuit Court Judge Lynn Rider at a Dec. 8 hearing for a 49-year-old Hampton, Ga. man charged in the death of a 53-year-old town of Bridgeport woman.

Jimmy McDaniel has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide in the death of his girlfriend Linda Kline.

Rider said that the motion for a change of venue can be revisited at a later date.

McDaniel’s attorney, Jeffrey Erickson, introduced 28 items consisting of newspaper and internet articles in an effort to say that there has been so much publicity about the case that “there is a reasonable likelihood that a fair trial cannot be had.”

“The publicity has been inflammatory,” said Erickson. “This bad publicity has permeated Crawford County and the jury pool would be tainted.”

Erickson said that there have been numerous articles about the case in several area newspapers. He said the use of the words “staged hanging” was inflammatory. He especially cited a headline in the Telegraph Herald and noted that links listed by the newspaper linked to court documents. Erickson also said there were several stories on the internet.

District Attorney Tim Baxter said that it is the defense’s burden of proof as to whether the pretrial publicity has prejudiced the potential jury pool. Baxter said that numerous newspaper and internet articles about the case were “not inflammatory and were just reporting on the facts.” He said that articles which used the words “staged hanging” or “staged suicide” had correctly attributed those phrases to quotes by the state’s pathologist, Dr. Michael Stier, in the criminal complaint.

Baxter also noted that court documents are public records and any links to them are irrelevant because any citizen can obtain court records such as the criminal complaint or the probable cause statement.

Baxter asked that Judge Lynn Rider deny the motion for a change of venue.

In her ruling to deny, Rider said that there is not enough evidence in the 28 items provided by Erickson that the pretrial publicity has prejudiced the jury pool. 

Rider said that only one of the 28 articles, an article by the internet news source Midwest News, can possibly be thought of as inflammatory because of its descriptions of McDaniel’s facial expressions and of his crying “uncontrollably” at his preliminary hearing.

Rider also said that she will take as much care as she possibly can in voir dire, the process by which the jury is selected, to ensure that the jury is not tainted. She said she may use a larger pool of potential jurors and may also interview potential jurors individually.

Rider said that based upon possible future pretrial publicity and possible future evidentiary rulings as to what is or is not admissible in court, Erickson may file another motion for a change of venue.

A jury status hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 8 at 9 a.m.

According to the criminal complaint, McDaniel is accused of strangling Kline with his hands and causing blunt force trauma to her head and then staging her death as a suicide by hanging on Oct. 5, in the backyard of the home she lived in on Velvet Lane in Bridgeport Township.

McDaniel faces a maximum penalty of 60 years in prison if convicted. He is being held in the Crawford County Jail on a $500,000 cash bond.