Thursday, September 13, 2012

Exorbitant Bond in Dearborn County, IN - Dan Brewington's Case


Exorbitant Bond in Dearborn County, IN – Dan Brewington’s Case

There is a huge distinction between protecting society, being tough on crime and bullying one’s own constituents. Using high bonds to keep people in jail longer has been a topic of discussion in the decision to increase the size of the jail and in the upcoming judicial race where Alan Miller is challenging Sally Blankenship for Superior Court II. This is one case of the high bond syndrome.

Dan Brewington’s Arraignment Hearing March 11, 2012

In looking at the Arraignment Hearing one needs to consider two documents: the Order Setting Bail and the transcripts for the hearing. Bail was set at $500,000 surety plus $100,000 cash.

A.    Order Setting Bail

1.     The charges are such that there “exists a threat to community and/or individual safety”.

2.     “State provided evidence that the Defendant has a history of not following Court orders and a general disdain for the authority of the Court and the legal system.

a.      Judge Blankenship puts issues stemming from the divorce decree in the Order Setting Bail as if there was some criminality involved. No charges, no police action, and most important no attempt at any time to alter the parenting schedule where Mr. Brewington cared for his children as much as 4 nights in certain weeks, were ever made. $600,000 bond.

b.     History of not following Court Orders – Mr. Kisor gave the example of Brewington posting information from the Grand Jury.

c.      Judge Blankenship quoted about Dan’s mental health from Dr. Connor’s report. The report that Dan has never been able to get the case file from, in order to refute anything Dr. Connor had to say. Without the case file Dr. Connor continues to have absolutely no checks and balances on his word.

d.     “this is like playing with gas and fire, and anyone who has seen me with gas and fire know that I am quite the accomplished pyromaniac” – (This had nothing to do with setting anything on fire. No evidence, charges, suspicious activity was ever reported. Again, suggesting what Dan might do.)

e.      “based on these findings and the evidence presented, the Court finds that the Defendant poses a significant risk to community safety and is unlikely to follow the conditions of bond as to the no contact order…

B.    The Arraignment Hearing March 11, 2011.

1.     Perjury, Attempted Obstruction of Justice, and Releasing Grand Jury Information, are not violent crimes.

2.     The Intimidation charges contained absolutely no specifics. Two intimidation charges were Misdemeanors and the Intimidation of the Judge was a felony. It was a felony because he was a Judge, not because the actions were different. Nothing was presented except for the indictments as they were written, no examples of intimidation.

3.     Mr. Kisor

a.      Protective Orders were presented for Dr. Ed Connor and Dr. James D. Humphrey and his family. The Orders listed numerous things that Brewington was not allowed to do (all things that he had never done before).

b.     Kisor said high bond would be appropriate. That Dan was a resident of the state of Ohio, and that “we believe that the allegations are extremely serious and he is a danger to the community.”

c.      Kisor presented two blogs posted on the Dearborn County Forum, March 10, 2011 and March 11, 2011 both light postings from Dan concerning his situation. Dan wrote that if Negangard got a high bond for him someone would continue to post about his story on his blog and on facebook under Help Dan Brewington See His Girls.

d.     High bond would be appropriate because he is a resident of the state of Ohio and we believe that the allegations are extremely serious and he does present a danger to the community.

e.      Mr. Kisor said the State asks that Mr. Brewington not access the internet or if the court would believe that to be to broad, order that Mr. Brewington cannot blog about the substance of his version of the case. I have personally reviewed a blog on the Dearborn County Forum and Mr. Brewington indicates that he will continue to have someone post his story if he is put in jail, indicating he is going to continue to write about this case.

f.       Mr. Kisor said the State believes that trying this case on his blog is detrimental to the state, maybe detrimental to him.

g.     Mr. Kisor still has a problem with Dan posting about the case. Dan should not be able to try the case in the public court.  

h.     Mr. Kisor said this is the court where the case needs to be tried, not the public court.

i.       States Exhibit 3 Divorce judgment (Even through no criminality was involved at all in the divorce, it too is being presented as evidence a high bond is needed.)

j.       Exhibit 4 Appeals Court decision affirming the trial court.

k.     Exhibit 5 Letter from Dr. Connor (Sept. 10, 2008) (where Dr. Connor claims to be an extension of the court, only to be told by Judge Taul on September 16, 2008 that he was not an extension of the court)

l.       Mr. Kisor said Brewington has disdain for any court or anyone that he sees as the enemy and he will attack, on his blog, anybody that he disagrees with. I don’t think this is the proper way for this case to proceed.

m.   Again, the State requests high bond and that Mr. Brewington not be permitted to use the internet, blog or discuss this case in any form.

4.     Judge Blankenship allowed Mr. Robert G. Kelly to speak on Brewington’s behalf with the understanding by all involved that he was not representing Brewington.

a.      Dan Brewington is 37 years old, lived in Norwood, Ohio or  Milan, Indiana all of his life.

b.     He has no criminal record, until now.

c.      Only record now is in this court.

d.     He has no missed court dates.

e.      He voluntarily waited for approximately 6 hours to speak to the Grand Jury.

f.      He voluntarily surrendered to Dearborn County, Indiana after being released on bond by Hamilton County, Ohio

g.     No threats of violence on any of these charges have been filed

h.     No in person contact between Brewington and Judge Humphrey or Judge Humphrey’s wife at any time other than in a courtroom.

i.       The only contact with Dr. Connor were visits with Connor for the evaluation.

j.        Regarding the releasing Grand Jury Information, Brewington wrote a parody using the dialogue from a Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise Movie, A Few Good Men. He did not release any grand jury information.

5.     Mr. Kisor – repeating the same argument.

a.      The only concern about the Grand Jury issue would be it was stated explicitly that he was not to put anything on his blog about the grand jury proceedings, the only concern about the Grand Jury… is Mr. Brewington does not follow instructions that need to be followed. That is our big issue here. The postings show an absolute disdain for the court, for the prosecution which is ok as long as it does not affect everybody’s right to a fair trial. (Who else is on trial besides Brewington?)

b.     Mr. Kisor claimed that people who read that might not know that it was from the movie A Few Good Men. (Maybe that would work except for the fact that Brewington explained what he was doing at the end of the blog.)

6.     Judge Blankenship

a.      On February 21, 2011 Dan Brewington wrote a blog letting people know that Judge Blankenship’s name was being used as an endorsement on the Midwest Data Site. Her name was removed in the next two days. This happened before the arraignment hearing.

b.     On March 17, 2011, six days after setting the $600,000 bond, Judge Blankenship disqualified herself from presiding because the “alleged victim in the case is the sitting judge of the Dearborn Circuit Court. To avoid the appearance of bias or prejudice, no judicial officer in Dearborn County is able to hear this matter.”

7.     Sue Brewington submitted a public records request for the audio from this hearing and received the audio with a warning that she might be held in contempt of court if she shared it with anyone. Sue Brewington placed two public records requests for the transcript from the arraignment hearing, she was more than willing to pay for, but she was totally ignored. For this article she has written a summary of the hearing from the audio.  The transcript is being requested by Brewington’s Indianapolis, Civil Rights attorney and will be posted.

8.     The following are links to the Order Setting Bail and the Post by Brewington about the Judicial endorsement.




 

Monday, September 3, 2012

More Press Regarding Brewington's Case


While researching Daniel Brewington’s case I found the following blogpost. I have copied it below but have also attached the link for the entire page. The brief article manages to include all the participants including the public defender Bryan Barrett and Prosecutor F. Aaron Negangard. Thanks to everyone for all of your support. Sue

FamilyLawCourts.com - No one over eleven believes it's working.

Knock knock. Who's there?
Not media.

Indiana: It's not that DA Aaron Negangard has issues with free speech as claimed by Dan Brewington, incorrectly as it turns out.

It seems the real problem encountered by Dan Brewington was first and foremost, his failure to consider the Penal Code aspect of Indiana's laws when one is a gun owner.

Brewington's second issue, although he may not have been aware of it at the time, was his attorney of record,
Bryan Barrett
.

We've spoken with Bryan Barrett and found both he and his staff to be the consummate unprofessionals.

Unable to find specific threats, we did learn Indiana has laws on the books to address regular fear and others for special, judicial fears. No kidding.

Brewington's blog criticized everyone, acording to Eagle County Online. Beginning in Dearborn County with Circuit Court Judge James Humphrey.

Brewington also had sharp words for a custody evaluator. (There's always a custody evaluator); and quite naturally, although nowhere near as bad as Morelli, his former wife and her attorney.

We're not exactlly clear how Judge James Humphrey's wife, and Dr. Edward Conner's wife wife became involved; although one thing was made clear:

Apparently Indiana has no shortage of fearful people.
Separately, Brewington's defense attorney, Bryan Barrett went with a jury of six, which itself speaks to ineffectiveness of counsel. Making things slightly worse, it was a jury of five women and one, lone, man.

File that under: What was he thinking???

Turns out, six will get you five.
In prison.

In total, subjects identified on Brewington's blog, now identified as "eight witnesses" were all called by the prosecution whereupon they all took turns testifying they were fearful. So Dan needn't have done anything...all he had to do was speak in a certain way.

Judge James Humphrey and his wife Heidi Humphrey, Dr. Connor and his wife, Sara Connor...Melissa Brewington, her divorce attorney, Angela Loechel, Anne Jordan, and Dearborn County Sheriff Mike Kreinhop.

Whew. That's just a great big mess of fearful, fearful people.


http://www.familylawcourts.com/freespeech.html  Dan’s story was in the 2nd column. You can view this site for the entire page of stories.