News from around Wisconsin (10:30 p.m. 2/8/10)

Published: February 8, 2010

Prosecutors seek gag order in sweat lodge case

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Attorneys for a motivational speaker charged in the deaths of three people during an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony wasted no time going on the offensive after his arrest last week.

James Arthur Ray’s lawyers appeared on “Larry King Live” and granted interviews to other national media outlets to counter prosecution claims that he was responsible for the deaths at a ceremony he led in October.

The push didn’t go unnoticed, with prosecutors now filing a request for a gag order in the case.

Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk argued the order would limit pretrial publicity that could taint the jury pool. She wants the order to include Ray’s employees, his attorneys and their staff, staff and attorneys in the county attorney’s office and employees of the county sheriff’s office.

“Nothing is more vital to a just and accurate outcome of this case than ensuring that the evidence is presented in a venue controlled by the rules of evidence rather than in the court of public opinion,” Polk wrote in her request.

Ray’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. They said in court documents that they would file a formal response this week.

They also asked that the prosecutors’ motion be heard on Friday, when they also plan to argue for a reduced bail.

Feds admit wrongly tracking Wis. abortion groups

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a threat assessment of local pro- and anti-abortion rights activists before an expected rally last year, even though they did not pose a threat to national security.

The DHS destroyed or deleted its copies of the assessment after an internal review found it violated intelligence-gathering guidelines by collecting and sharing information about “protest groups which posed no threat to homeland security,” according to a department memo written last year.

The report was only shared with police in Middleton and with the director of the Wisconsin Statewide Information Center, an intelligence-gathering hub, according to the memo, which was signed by general counsel Ivan Fong and inspector general Richard Skinner.

It concluded the report was unlikely to “have any impact on civil liberties or civil rights” given its limited dissemination. But anti-abortion groups and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin on Monday both criticized the federal government’s collection of information on law-abiding protesters.

The report was compiled prior to a February 2009 meeting in Middleton by the University of Wisconsin Hospital board to decide whether to open a clinic that would offer late-term abortions.

The analyst who compiled the report — the agency’s representative to Wisconsin’s intelligence center — received improper guidance that he could perform the assessment “to support local police and public safety efforts,” according to the memo. The analyst was given remedial training and department lawyers counseled supervisors who were involved, it said.

The memo was made public as part of a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was seeking reports from an intelligence oversight panel. After The New York Times reported on its contents in December, a lawyer representing anti-abortion activists who attended the rally asked Middleton police to release a copy of the assessment under Wisconsin’s open records law.

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