Part 1 of a two blog series on tampering grand jury audio.
 |
| Judge Sally A. McLaughlin Superior Court IIDearborn County Indiana |
It is important to note that the grand jury audio begins
at witness testimony as Judge McLaughlin’s Court omitted Negangard’s
introduction to the grand jury from the audio record. The following excerpt
from the grand jury transcripts by Prosecutor Negangard is just one example of where
the Court altered the record of the grand jury proceedings. The statements in
question allegedly occurred on March 1, 2011, in the closing moments of the
second day of the grand jury investigation of Brewington. Page 336, lines 23-25
of the grand jury transcripts represent Negangard stating,
“I don't have any further questions at this time. Okay one
of the Grand Jurors has a question for Sheriff Krieinhop.”
At first glance, nothing seems out of the ordinary; however,
the transcripts fail to show that Negangard’s second statement comes from a later
point in the proceedings. The following visual provides insight into one
section of the altered record:
The box in the lower left hand corner shows Negangard’s
statements as they appear in the transcripts but Negangard’s second statement exists
in a separate audio file later in time. The green audio frequency wave represents
a real time account of Negangard’s statements, with one exception. For the
purpose of this demonstration, the two separate audio files received from the
Court were spliced “as-is” to match Negangard’s dialogue in the transcripts. The
placement of Negangard’s spoken words is where the individual words appear in the
appropriate digital wavelength. As shown in the diagram, approximately 19
seconds of ambient noise occupy the space between Negangard’s statements. The
circled point represents the point where the two audio files are spliced. The
transcripts give no indication of the 19-second gap in the audio demonstrated
in the wavelength above. Neither the transcripts nor the digital representation
of the audio give any indication that the Court secretly removed at least one
entire audio file existing in the 19-seconds of silence between Negangard’s two statements.
Here is where it gets a little technical. Though the file
structure is not rocket science, it is impossible to prove Judge McLaughlin’s
Court altered the audio without figuring out the file naming structure of the
court recording system. In reviewing audio files from public court proceedings,
the audio recording systems in place for court reporting in Dearborn County
Courts automatically store audio from court proceedings in individual five-minute
files. In addition, the date and time are included in the automated file naming
process. If an hour-long hearing occurs in the Superior Court II on July 4,
2016 at 10:00am, the first audio file name would include “Superior
2_20160704_1000”. In five minutes, the recording system automatically creates a
new audio file, which would include “Superior 2_20160704_1005” in the following
new file name. Every five minutes the name changes with the time: 1010, 1015,
1020 and so on. If you request public trial audio from a specific date, the
court will provide a CD-R with similarly named five-minute files. When the
Indiana Public Access Counsel issued his opinion (April 14, 2016) in favor of
releasing the grand jury audio, the Court filed an order to release an edited
version of the grand jury audio. The Court’s April 20, 2016 order made a new
allegation that the audio of “four to five” other grand jury proceedings were
intertwined with Brewington’s proceedings. Due to the new claim of confidential
grand jury audio allegedly intertwined with Brewington’s grand jury
proceedings, the Court’s order directed McLaughlin’s court reporter to edit the
grand jury audio to include only portions of audio pertaining to Brewington. The
Court changed the file format of the audio to an editable .wav file and
combined the individual audio files. When the Court combined audio files, it
retained the file name of the first audio file in the compilation. When the
Court cut out segments of the audio, it began a new compilation of audio files
and retained the name of the next audio segment that the Court decided to
include in the "official" record. Negangard's statement on line 23 is
the last statement appearing on the file named “Superior
2_20110301-1606_01cbd82ab1003d00”. Negangard's statement appearing on line 24
is located in the file named “Superior 2_20110301-1622_01cbd82cedc39690”. The
first file began at 16:06 (4:06 pm) and the second at 16:22 (4:22 pm). The length
of the audio in the first file is 10 minutes and 36, which would end at roughly
16:17. The earliest point that Negangard's statement on line 24 could have
occurred is at 16:22. The audio is void of Negangard making any verbal
recognition of the beginning or end of the record. Because a gap of over five
minutes exists between the two audio files, the Court deleted at least an
entire audio file from the grand jury audio released to Brewington. A problem
arises if Judge McLaughlin claims the audio files from the grand jury
proceedings do not adhere to the five-minute file structure employed by normal
record keeping by the Court. If McLaughlin contends that the Court has the
ability to control the length of time by which files are stored simply by
switching the recording on and off, any confidentiality concerns about
intertwining grand jury investigations are rendered moot, because the audio
from the other proceedings would be stored in their own individual files. The
argument would completely debunk the Court’s rationalization for altering grand
jury audio. The fact Judge McLaughlin’s Court did not physically splice the
audio does not make the crime any less egregious. Not splicing the audio is far
more insidious as only altering the grand jury transcripts requires a joint
effort by the prosecutor and the court. The release of grand jury transcripts
is extremely rare and the release of audio is almost unheard of. If not for the
release of the grand jury audio and an understanding of the file structure produced
by Dearborn County Court reporting, Negangard and McLaughlin could continue to
abuse the grand jury process.
 |
| Prosecutor F. Aaron Negangard Dearborn County, Indiana |
This is Part 1 of a two-blog series on the analysis of the
release of the grand jury audio. Part 2 takes aim at the conflicting orders and
letters in the Court’s attempts to obstruct access to the tampered records. There
are many other examples where the transcripts and audio do not match up. As the
Dearborn County Superior Court II threatened to hold Brewington in contempt
for sharing the grand jury audio (altered by the Superior Court II), the audio
is not available online but may be shared with individuals who express
interest via email. Feel free to contact Dan Brewington at
contactdanbrewington@gmail.com with any questions or comments. Feel free to share with others, especially law enforcement.
