The gag order is in place to protect victims and their families, to protect any loose end investigations going on, and to prevent the case from being tried by the public instead of the jury.
The defense motion violates all of that. All of it. They have law degrees, they know what a gag order is. There is no way the defense did this through ignorance. It was a deliberate ploy.
And they knew it would work, 1) because,of course, killer pagan people are involved. Who doesn’t want to hear those gory details; and 2) because this court moves like a snail over molasses guaranteeing that the motion will get maximum exposure before Judge Rip Van Winkle Gull gets around to dealing with the memo and the bad boy defense attorneys.
So the defense gets to stir things up, attempt to skew public opinion, horrify everyone with wild speculation and half-truths, and make folks forget maybe that RA confessed multiple times. “Don’t look at the confessions please, look here as we spin a tale of godless cults killing young girls”. Also, the motion is still out there. The link I saved when it first came out still works.
What will probably happen? Two months from now the judge will rule against the defense. She will censure, sanction, and fine the defense for violating the gag order.
And the defense will smile quietly to themselves.
