Fleet White
Appearances
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
To the people of Colorado. In anticipation of receiving a subpoena to appear before that grand jury, we wish at this time to address matters concerning the investigation which we feel are of great importance to the people of Colorado and the Boulder community.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
After John Benet Ramsey was killed in Boulder nearly 20 months ago, her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, immediately hired prominent Democrat criminal defense attorneys with the law firm of Haddon, Morgan, and Foreman.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
This firm and its partners have close professional, political, and personal ties to prosecutors, the Denver and Boulder legal and judicial communities, state legislators, and high-ranking members of Colorado government, including Governor Roy Romer. We knew JonBenet and her parents very well and have been closely involved in the investigation as witnesses.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
During the past year, we have also come to know and respect Mr. Thomas and were saddened and discouraged by his departure from the investigation. We share Mr. Thomas's view regarding the district attorney and his contention that overwhelming pressure brought to bear on the district attorney and police leadership from various quarters has thwarted the investigation and delayed justice in the case.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
While it is unlikely that the district attorney has been corrupted by Ramsey defense attorneys, it is certain that the district attorney and his prosecutors have been greatly influenced by their metro area district attorney advisors and by defense attorneys' chummy persuasiveness and threats of reprisals for anyone daring to jeopardize the civil rights of their victim clients.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
Indeed, the district attorney and Ramsey attorneys have simultaneously rebuked the police for focusing their investigation on the Ramseys, when in fact police were simply following evidence.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
Notwithstanding what the public has been led to believe, Boulder police leadership and detectives have been under the effective control of the district attorney and his advisors since the early days of the investigation.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
In December 1997, we met with Governor Romer to request that the state intervene and appoint an independent special prosecutor to take over the investigation and prosecution of the case. Citing the growing conflict between police and prosecutors and the delay of any progress in the investigation, we expressed our view that Boulder authorities were incapable of seeking justice.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
Most developments in the case brought to the public's attention throughout 1997 should be regarded as well-publicized but clumsy attempts by the district attorney and police leadership to look busy, follow long task lists, and clean up investigative files while the district attorney killed time and spread out responsibility for the case.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
On the other hand, advances in the case since early this year have been carefully planned to condition the public for a grand jury investigation. The district attorney's past indecision and the need for police to ask him for a grand jury investigation were deliberate attempts to mislead the public.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
If based on nothing other than the district attorney's repeated public statements and leaks characterizing the case as not prosecutable, there can be little doubt that, absent a confession, the people running the investigation had long ago decided against filing charges in the case. Instead, they manipulated public opinion to favor the use of the grand jury.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
There is compelling evidence, however, that their motivation for presenting the case to a grand jury has little or nothing to do with obtaining new evidence, grilling reluctant witnesses, or returning an indictment and everything to do with sealing away facts, circumstances, and evidence gathered in the investigation in a grand jury transcript.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
It is our firm belief that the district attorney and others intend to use the grand jury and its secrecy in an attempt to protect their careers and also serve the conflicting interests of powerful, influential, and threatening people who have something to hide or protect or who simply don't want to be publicly linked to a dreadful murder investigation.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
In direct response to Mr. Thomas' recent letter, Governor Romer met on August 12, 1998, with District Attorneys Grant, Ritter, Peters, and Thomas. Later that day, Governor Romer announced at a press conference that Hunter had told him that the case was on track for a grand jury.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
Romer said that it would be improper to appoint a special prosecutor now, but that to improve public confidence in the case, he would make available to Hunter additional prosecutorial expertise.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
On August 13, 1998, the Rocky Mountain News offered an editorial entitled, Calling in the Cavalry, in which the editor generally supported Governor Romer's action, but insightfully asked the obvious question, why has it taken so long for Hunter's office to present the case to a grand jury?
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
there is a relatively simple but compelling answer to the question raised by the Rocky Mountain News editorial.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
Since very early in the case, there has been at least a tacit understanding among the district attorney, police leadership, those persons advising these agencies, and Ramsey defense attorneys that the case would be presented to a grand jury, but not until the statutory Boulder grand jury was convened in April 1998.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
This delay was deemed necessary by some or all of these parties in order to take advantage of a new statute concerning grand jury reporting procedures. By law, however, this change in procedure would only apply to reports issued by grand juries convened after October 1, 1997.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
In order to take advantage of the new statute, a Boulder grand jury would have to wait until April 1998, the next convening of the statutory Boulder grand jury subsequent to October 1st, 1997. In order to accomplish this, it was necessary for these people to stall and cynically rely on the public's relative ignorance of the statute and the purpose and general nature of grand juries.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
Speaking in favor of the bill before the committee were District Attorneys Ritter, Thomas, and Grant. All of these District Attorneys, along with Jim Peters, would be named publicly as advisors to Alex Hunter on the Ramsey case. The original intent of the Colorado District Attorney Council draft and that of Representative Kaufman
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
was to make it easier for grand juries to issue reports in cases where there is not an indictment returned, but where, in the public interest, the grand jury wishes to address allegations of misconduct by public employees falling short of criminal conduct.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
The final bill made it possible for a grand jury to address allegations of first- and second-degree murder and the two classes of child abuse resulting in death. The new statute would enable a Boulder grand jury investigating the death of John Benet Ramsey to publicly exonerate someone who'd been alleged to have committed one of these crimes, but only in the event an indictment was not returned.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
The bill was signed into law by Governor Romer on April 8, 1997.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
It is certain that Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter, the Metro Area District Attorneys advising Mr. Hunter, the current leadership of the Boulder Police Department, the three attorneys advising the Boulder Police Department, and Ramsey defense attorneys have known that to take advantage of the new statute, it would be necessary to delay a grand jury investigation of the Ramsey case until April 1998.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
The people of Colorado are entitled to be frustrated and angry with those public officials and other persons who have brought this case to its current status.
Crime Junkie
MURDERED: JonBenét Ramsey
We must be mindful, however, of the first cause of the investigation's failure, the refusal of John and Patsy Ramsey to cooperate fully and genuinely with those officially charged with the responsibility of investigating the death of their daughter, John Benet. Fleet Russell White Jr. and Priscilla Brown White. August 17th, 1998. Boulder, Colorado.