Regardless of age, a person accused of a double homicide should not be tried in secret

If Jordan Brown of Wampum, Pa., had been tried as an adult and found guilty of murdering his father’s 26-year-old fianc e when Jordan was 11 years old, he would have been the youngest person in U.S. history sentenced to life in prison.

That would have been a travesty, and after reconsideration, the state of Pennsylvania got it right in charging Jordan in juvenile court.

But it is one thing to treat the boy, now 14 years old, as a juvenile, and quite another to treat him as a potential victim of public exposure by the press that sought access to his juvenile court trial.

Much of what is known at this point about this crime is known only because under state law homicide charges must first be filed against a defendant as an adult, and subsequently may be transferred to juvenile court. For a while, it appeared that Jordan was going to face trial as an adult, and in some ways that would have better served the public’s interest, as extreme as that might seem.

That’s because after the case was established as a juvenile court case, Lawrence County Judge John W. Hodge ordered that proceedings in the case be closed to the public and news media. Hodge was not bound to do so, he had the option under state law because Jordan was younger than 12 when the crime was committed.

A plea for openness

The New Castle News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review filed suit seeking to open the trial to the press. They argued, as the Associated Press reported, that because the public already knows the allegations and the boy’s identity and has heard claims by his father that he’s innocent, it should also learn whether authorities have really solved the crime. They also argued that Pennsylvania’s Constitution, which presumes the courtroom’s door to be open, should trump a judge’s discretion in closing it.

The state Superior Court ruled last week that “denial of public access to the juvenile proceedings at hand serves an important government interest” because “under the facts of the case, there is no alternative short of closure of the juvenile court proceedings which will adequately serve the privacy interests of J.B.”

So the “privacy interests” of a boy accused of murder are, in the court’s opinion, superior to the community’s interest in knowing what the police learned about this homicide and what evidence prosecutors present to the court.

The Post Gazette reported that the information blackout could be so complete that the public might not be able to learn when and whether a hearing has occurred, much less the outcome.

A double disservice

That kind of cloak of secrecy does a disservice even to the defendant, unless, in contrast to his father’s claim of innocence, he’s guilty. And if he’s guilty, it does a disservice to the public, which is going to see Jordan Brown set free no later than seven years from now, when he reaches the age of 21.

Jordan faces an accusation that before leaving for school the morning of Feb. 20, 2009, he took his own shotgun from his room, crept up behind Kenzie Houk as she lay in bed and shot her in the back of the head. She died of the gunshot wound, and her unborn son died of oxygen deprivation. The evidence suggests Jordan returned his gun to his room and then left for school with his 7-year-old sister, dropping a spent shotgun shell in the dirt along the way. Their 4-year-old sister was left home alone to find the body, which she did.

That is a crime that fits the definition of heinous, regardless of how young the perpetrator might be. The extent to which the public would want to know how solid a case the state has is obvious to us, and of greater value than Jordan’s “privacy interests.” It’s a shame the state Superior Court could not properly balance the public’s right to know against giving an accused killer an absolute shield from further public scrutiny.