Drug, assault arrest detailed at hearing

WINONA, Minn., Aug. 31, 2005 -- A three-hour court session for Paul Allen Gordon, the 22-year-old man charged with murdering a pregnant 29-year-old Winona State University student and her 10-year-old daughter in December, yielded no rulings on earlier drug possession and assault charges. The murder case was not issue, only drug-dealing charges from October. The hearing's purpose was to sort through evidence against Gordon and let his attorneys develop a response. Judge Lawrence Thompson gave Rich McCluer, part of the defense team, a Sept., 9 deadline to submit challenges to the charges in writing. MORE Security was tight. Two officers guarded the main Courthouse entrance. People entering the building were required to pass under the walk-through metal detector and undergo a belongings search. A team of county deputies, city police and courthouse security guards kept watch outside the courtroom as well as within. MORE Gordon remained in shackles, as ordered by Judge Thompson, because he's considered flight risk on the murder charges, which could be punishable by life imprisonment. MORE New reporters, Winona County jail Chaplin Ryan O'Gara, and members of the murder victims' family attended the hearing. MORE The hearing began with Judge Lawrence Collins asking Gordon, "Are you Paul Allen Gordon?" Gordon stuttered, "Y-y-y-y-y-yes sir." MORE The omnibus hearing for the drug charges, in which evidence and police procedures were argued, consisted largely of police testimony. Police Sgt. David Allen, a 10-year Winona police veteran, testified for more than an hour, describing the events that unfolded around 1 a.m., Oct. 31, when he and another out-of-uniform officer observed Gordon and two other men making what they suspected to be a drug deal in a downtown alley. MORE In an interview later outside the courtroom, Allen said he has testified in court many times but still finds the experience "nerve wracking." MORE In his testimony, Allen recounted that Gordon approached him with a fake, scaled down Tommy-style machine gun and pointed it at his head. Gordon's attorney, Rich McCluer, questioned the police officers about the the toy gun, pointing out that it was significantly smaller than an actual machine gun and that the barrel had a bright orange tip indicating it was a toy. Both officers agreed that the gun obviously was a fake when viewed in daylight. In the dark alley, however, it was not obvious, they said. Initially, Allen said he believed the gun was real: "I thought my life was in danger." MORE Allen's partner, officer Jared Rasmussen, testified that he too felt threatened and thought the gun was real, so he used a "standard disarming technique" to "gain control" of the weapon. Only then, he said, did he realize the gun was a plastic toy. MORE Although assistant county prosecutor Kevin O'Laughlin presented the case, County prosecutor Chuck MacLean was clearly involved in positing questions for the witnesses. During the hearing, MacLean sat in the front row behind O'Laughlin, periodically writing on a legal notepad. MacLean would then hand the notepad to O'Laughlin. Before O'Laughlin finished a line of questioning, he swiveled his chair around and whispered to MacLean. Sometimes MacLean leaned forward and whispered back, then O'Laughlin would further questioned the witness. Other times, MacLean sat back and nodded, and O'Laughlin would offer no further questions to the witness. MORE The prosecution were not the only ones whispering. During Rasmussen's testimony about wresting the gun from Gordon, Gordon shook his head and whispered to McCluer. McCluer questioned the officers about the lighting conditions and their vantage point while observing the alleged drug deal, which took place atop a fire escape. MORE The officers testified that they did not actually see drugs being passed between Gordon and other men in the alley. But, said Allen, "their hands were in close proximity consistent with a hand-to-hand exchange." Allen said, also, that he saw Gordon toss something the size of a golf ball but could not tell what exactly. When Allen checked, he said, he found a bag containing 12 smaller plastic "gem bags" filled with both crack and powder cocaine. Allen said both the amount and the mixture of two types of a drug indicate drug dealing, not drug use. MORE Later, when Gordon was taken to the police station, bills totaling $435 were found in a pocket. McCluer questioned the officer's right to search Gordon's pockets. Police Sgt. Thad Pool said he searched Gordon's pockets for "safety purposes" to make sure he was not carrying any weapons.

PAUL ALLEN GORDON Accused in Winona strangulation murders

UPCOMING EVENTS
ST. MARY'S	SOUTHEAST TECH	WINONA STATE

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October hearing key to Gordon's future

WINONA, Minn., Aug. 30, 2005 -- The public defender representing Paul Allen Gordon, the 22-year-old man charged in the Sugar Loaf murders, said the case is the most massive she has ever worked. "This is the largest case in terms of volume of information I've ever done -- and I've done homicides, said Julie Maxwell of Rochester. "This is a very complicated case with an enormous amount of evidence to sift through. That's why this case is moving along much slower than most other criminal cases." Gordon, a drug dealer who blew into town a year ago, is accused of killing Stacy Smith, 29, and her 10-year daughter in mid-December, then skipping town. MORE Winona County prosecutor Chuck MacLean concurs on the massiveness of evidence, which he calls both a "burden and a thrill." MacLean's large Courthouse office is lined with more than 50 three-ring binders containing evidence. There also are several CD wallets filled with crime scene and autopsy photos and interviews. Transcripts from the grand jury, which returned first-degree murder indictments against Gordonin April, total more than 18,000 pages. With numerous boxes of physical evidence and the transcripts to pore over, Maxwell said she has her hands full "getting a firm grasp on everything" in preparation for an Oct. 25 an evidentiary hearing. MORE The October hearing, technically called an omnibus hearing, gives the defense a chance to object to evidence and challenge the grand jury. Maxwell called the gearing a critical stage in the case, a "stepping stone to what happens next." MORE Maxwell is sure there are errors in the evidence, which would not be untypical. "Police are human beings, and as a result there may be mistakes." Maxwell added, however, that she has not yet fully identified any omnibus issues, such as police searches and probable cause. MORE Maxwell said that Gordon will not enter a plea at the omnibus hearing. As to when Gordon will make a plea, Maxwell said, "If the outcome of the omnibus hearing is not favorable, then we may enter a plea." The plea will likely be not guilty: “We almost always enter a not-guilty plea," she said. MORE Stacy Smith's mother, Cheryl Hodge, wishes the case were behind her and her family: "I just want it all to be over with." Once Gordon is convicted, she said, "I would feel so much better." MORE MacLean speculated that it would be a while before Hodge gets her wish. "I expect the Gordon case to finish sometime in spring of 2006," he said. After the omnibus hearing, both attorneys need to write and file legal briefs. The court then has 90 days to go over the briefs. If the court finds probable cause, the constitutional right of every citizen to a speedy trial dictates that a trial be set within 60 days from the court's probable cause decision. The trial itself, MacLean said, will take weeks. MORE There is the chance that the Gordon case will not go to trial if a plea bargain is reached. Said Maxwell: "Bargaining sometimes takes place fairly soon after omnibus. Other times it occurs much closer to the trial date." MORE Hodge, mother to Stacy Smith and grandmother Taylor, said she would be upset if a plea bargain would allow Gordon the possibility of parole. "I don't care as long as he dies in prison," she said. "Stacy and Taylor will never walk free in the world again. He shouldn't be able to." MORE Is a plea bargain in the cards? Maxwell said it is too early to know: "I'm not trying to be vague," she said. "It is just too premature to speculate on what will happen next." MORE Meanwhile, a member of the public defender's office, sometimes Maxwell, sometimes someone else, meets with Gordon every couple of weeks to discuss his future.

PAUL ALLEN GORDON Accused in Winona strangulation murders

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Christian schools cry foul, sue

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Aug. 29, 2005 -- The Association of Christian Schools International, which represents 4,000 private schools nationwide, accused the University of California system of trying to "secularize private Christian schools by discriminating against a Christian viewpoint" and filed a federal lawsut. According to the suit, the University of California system will not accept certain high-school credits from Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, Calif., because the courses have a Christian slant. The 108-page complaint contends that the university rejected biology and physics courses that used creationist textbooks from Christian publishers A Beka Book Inc. and Bob Jones University Press. The university also disqualified courses in history, literature, and government studies. MORE Ravi Poorsina, a university spokespersn, said that private schools have a righht to select course material but that the university must have entrance requirements that "meet university academic standards." The lawsuit quotes a 2004 letter from Susan Wilbur, the university's director of undergraduate admissions, that a class called Christianity's Influence in America as "too narrow" and specialized. Also, Wibur said that students who take these courses "may not be well prepared" for university success. MORE Another university official was quoted that the content of courses using A Beka and Bob Jones textbooks are "not consistent with the viewpoints and knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community." Bob Jones Univerity Press toutrs biology textbook is described as focusing on "biblical integration" while teaching about cellular biology, genetics, and other subjects. It also "presents Christian positions on biotechnology, abortion, evolution, homosexuality, ecology, disease and drugs."

TOM PORCH- BRAD BATDORF TITLE Too Christian? Two-volume high school text in its third edition is promoted by publisher Bob Jones University Press as a "biblical integration" with cellular biology, genetics, biotechnology, taxonomy, origins, microbiology, botany, zoology, and human anatomy.

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Guilty or not, attorneys provide defense

WINONA, Minn., Aug. 27, 2005 -- Paul Allen Gordon, the 22-year-old man charged with raping and strangling 10-year-old Taylor Swanson and strangling her pregnant mother, Stacy Smith, 29, is innocent, at least until a court rules differently, said Gordon's public defender, Julie Maxwell. "We’re all human beings," said Maxwell. "I forward them the same respect I would want given to me." Maxwell said she sees her clients as people who are "no different than anyone else" and "are just in a difficult situation." MORE When Stacy Smith's mother, Cheryl Hodge, looks at Gordon, she sees "a man without a soul." Hodge said in a recent interview that she became nauseated in the courtroom during Gordon's last hearing, when the grand jury indicted him for murder: "He had two women defending him. When they'd rub his back for him, it just about made me puke." Jean Albrecht, Hodge's sister-in-law, said she had to "hold Cheryl’s legs" during the hearing "because she was shaking so bad." MORE The slayings occurred Dec. 16 at Sugar Loaf Apartments, 358 E. Sarnia St., where Stacy Smith and her daughter lived. Investigators determined that a fire at the apartment was set after the killings apparently to conceal the crimes. Gordon has been indicted on three counts of first-degree mruder. He also is charged with arson. MORE Cheryl Hodge, mother of Stacy Smith and grandmother of Taylor, has no doubt of Gordon's guilt: "I still can't grasp how this one man took so much life. He killed Stacy and Taylor, but he killed me right along with them. And he killed the hearts of their loved ones. I don’t know how anyone could defend someone like that." MORE How does Maxwell defend Gordon? MORE In her role as an assistant public defender, Maxwell said it doesn't matter what Gordon did but rather that his rights as a citizen are protected: "I don't really care if he did it. It is not my job to prove that he is innocent. He is presumed innocent. It is the prosecution's job to prove otherwise. My job is to put forth the best defense possible." MORE Hodge, however, does not presume Gordon is innocent: "In my mind I know he is guilty." Gordon has not yet entered a plea. MORE Maxwell said that she tries not to get emotionally involved in her work and that she does not interact with victim's families: "It just works better that way." She said she understands the upset and grief of families. MORE Someone accustomed to questions about how public defenders can do their work in good conscience is Candice Rasmussen, a defense attorney who, although not working the Gordon case, has experience with high-profile cases, defending clients charged with heinous murders. In 1999 Rasmussen defended Howard Kramer, who was tried and convicted of staging a kidnapping of his toddler, Kenny, in Brownsville, Minn. Kramer bound his 3-year-old son's mouth with duct tape, wrapped him in a plastic bag, then left Kenny alive and alone in the woods. The boy suffocated to death. "People ask me all the time how I can do it." Rasmusse said. "I feel good and proud of what I’m doing. What we do is very important. I feel like Don Quixote, an unpopular Don Quixote." MORE Rasmussen said she likes her clients. "I've been doing this for 30 years, and the clients are my favorite part of my job," she said. "Every client is a human being. Every one has a story. Every one has or had a mother and father. I try to keep that in mind." MORE Rasmussen said that the role of a defense attorney is important in a democracy. "The criminal justice system wouldn't work without defense attorneys," she said. "We are the only ones standing between the accused and the power of the state. Otherwise anyone could be thrown in jail for being accused of who knows what. There has to be a way to test that." MORE Both Rasmussen and Maxwell agree that the emotional aspects of a trial can be difficult and that it is important to keep a "professional distance." Said Rasmussen: "It's kind of like a doctor with a sick patient. You have to be able to look at the facts." Maxwell said her job is to "make sure everyone did their job correctly" and "examine the evidence carefully, making sure the evidence was gathered according to the law." MORE Not everyone is cut out for the role of defense attorney. Winona County prosecutor Chuck MacLean, who is prosecuting Gordon, said that it is not in his "make-up" to do defense work. "The way I was raised, my belief system, my physical stature -- would preclude me from representing someone I knew was guilty, particularily of a heinous act. That is why I have the job I do," said MacLean.

PAUL ALLEN GORDON Accused in Winona strangulation murders

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Undercover campus-life author unmasked

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., Aug. 26, 2005 -- Cultural anthropologist Cathy Small of Northern Arizona University came out of the closet as the author of a book about undergraduate life that she wrote as an undercover freshman at her own university. Small admitted to the authorship after New York Sun reporter Jacob Gershman wrote that he had deduced her identify from clues in an advance copy of "My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student." In the book, researched on a sabbatical, Small chronicled her experience as a middle-aged professor taking classes and living in a dorm at what she described as a non-elite public university. MORE Advance publicity has created a stir in higher education. Small reported finding students spread thin, juggling jobs and classes loads. She found them job-obsessed and seeing classes as hurdles, not as learning experiences. Today's students have little academic curiosity, she said. In fact, in over a year she did not hear a single political or philosophical conversation in the dorm. MORE Small never disclosed her purposes to the students she was observing and wrote the book anonymously to, she said, protect their privacy. With the revelation in the New York Sun and knowing others were on to her, Small said she changed her mind. "I was doing more harm to students at this point by not revealing my identity," Small said. The project and the anonymityy had been with the knowledge of her campus colleagues and supervisors. MORE Gershman, at the New York Sun, said the book, under the nom d'plume Rebekah Nathan, included clues about the author and the unnamed campus: "She grew up in New York; she's in her 50s; she spent many years abroad observing an exotic foreign culture; her university is located near Las Vegas, is surrounded by mountains, and has a hotel and restaurant management school."

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Gordon's drug, assault hearing due

WINONA, Minn., Aug. 25, 2005 -- The man accused of slaying Winona State University student Stacy Smith and her 10-year-old daughter Taylor, Paul Allen Gordon, 22, is scheduled in court Wednesday on drug and assault charges unrelated to the murders. Reporter: Mollee Smith Background: Hearing delayed on October charges Background: Man sought is no stranger to cops Background: A grandma's shopping trips, no more

PAUL ALLEN GORDON Accused in Winona strangulation murders

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A grandma's shopping trips, no more

WINONA, Minn., Aug. 25, 2005 -- As the back-to-school season approaches, Cheryl Hodge is reminded of yet another annual custom she will never again experience -- school shopping for her girls. It was a pleasure that she had come to love, especially shopping for her granddaughter Taylor. Mired in poverty, shopping had been something she couldn't do when her daughter Stacy was little. This September both Stacy and Taylor are gone, brutally slain nine months ago in what's come to be called the Sugar Loaf Murders. Stacy this September would have been 30, Taylor 11. MORE While Stacy was growing up, Cheryl Hodge was poor, a single mother of two, living in a trailer house. She couldn't afford new brand-name clothing. Stacy resented her second-hand clothes, her mother recalled while thumbing through school portraits during an interview at her kitchen table. It was not an easy childhood for Stacy. About gaps where a picture was missing, her mother said: "Stacy tore up a lot of her pictures. She hated her glasses, and I couldn't afford to buy her contacts. She hated those pictures. She was a beautiful little girl, but she didn’t think so." MORE Trying to make up for her inability to provide for Stacy back then, Hodge said she spoiled her granddaughter Taylor with trendy clothing. "One of my favorite memories is, every year, taking Taylor to the Apache Mall in Rochester and the La Crosse mall to let her pick out new school clothes," Hodge said. MORE This year, attempting to fill the void, Hodge took her step-granddaughter out shopping for back-to-school duds. "It wasn't the same," said Hodge, gazing into the distance without focus, tears in her eyes. MORE She and Taylor shopped regularly. "Between the two of us we always thought of something to buy," said Hodge. "Taylor and I did a lot together. It's not the same without my shopping buddy." MORE After the murders, which occurred Dec. 16 at Sugar Loaf Apartments on Sarnia Street, Hodge said she had to go on the worst shopping outing of her life: Buying burial clothing for her daughter and granddaughter. All of Stacy and Taylor's clothing was damaged by flames or smoke in the fire that investigators say was set by their killer to cover up the murders. MORE Hodge and her sister-in-law, Jean Albrecht, went to JC Penney's, where Stacy had often shopped, to find funeral clothes, said Hodge. Hodge had already bought a $100 gift card at JC Penney's for Stacy as a Christmas present. "I could never have imagined that I would have to use it to buy her clothes to wear to her own funeral," said Hodge. MORE Hodge said she kept Stacy and Taylor's fashion tastes in mind while picking out their final outfits. "Taylor loved butterflies," she said. 'We got her jeans with a chain belt that had a butterfly clip. We got Stacy and Taylor matching sweaters. MORE After completing the emotional task of clothes shopping for her daughter and granddaughter's funeral, Cheryl was told by the funeral director, Wayne Myhre, that the matching sweaters wouldn't work. "He said we had to get different tops with taller necklines and longer sleeves,” Hodge said. "We had to go back to Penney's and do it all over again. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in life." MORE In the casket Taylor wore pink and purple butterfly earrings and a purple butterfly necklace, which had been intended as a Christmas present from her Aunt Jean. Hodge said she took the custom-made pearl necklace she wore around her own neck and gave it, as one last gift, to her daughter.

STACY SMITH WSU student (1975-2004) TAYLOR SWANSON Fourth-grader (1994-2004) CHERYL HODGE For grandmother, September holds back-to-school memories

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Task force: Dilute student-renter mix

WINONA, Minn., Aug. 24, 2005 -- Despite student objections, the city parking task force voted to slow the growth of off-campus student rental housing in the Winona State University neighborhood. The task force recommendations, approved 4-3, include reducing the number of unrelated residents allowed to live in a rental unit from five to three. A Winona State member of the task force, Student Senate Treasurer Laura Berens, objected that the recommendation would push students who want to live near campus farther into the city beyond the campus neighborhood. Some blocks near campus are almost entirely populated by student renters. Citywide, City Planner Mark Moeller, said 34 percent of properties are rental. MORE The task force recommendations will go to the city Planning Commission. The commission then will make its own recommendations to the City Council. The Council now has a moratorium in place on new rental licenses, pending the task force's recommendations and public hearings. The moratorium expires Dec. 20. If the task force recommendations survive further review, existing rental units would not be affected, but new rental permits would be denied until provisions in the recommendations are met. In effect, there would be a gradual reduction in student housing around Winona State. MORE Here is a summary of the task force recomendations: Limit each block to 30 percent rental property. Reduce the number of housemates allowed per rental unit from five to three. Increase the number of off-street parking spots per rental unit unit from 1.5 to two. Allow gravel for new parking spots behind homes and rental units. MORE City Council member Deb Salyards, chair of the task force, favored reducing percentage of students in the neighborhood. Salyards, who lives on Main Street across from Winona State, said the elderly and young families should not pushed out of the area by the university 's growing student population. Salyards, long a champion of preservationist causes, said the area risks becoming a ghetto owned completely by rental companies. MORE Voting against the task force recommendations were neighborhood resident Ray Felton and student representatives Ryan Flynn and Laura Berens. Flynn, who is student president at Winona State, said it's not the city's business to dictate the make-up of neighborhoods. He said any concern about unkempt student housing could be addressed through city pressure on landlords to keep up their property. Many units "don't look real nice," he conceded. Berens said many students need off-campus housing, preferably near campus, because they can't afford pricier dorm living. MORE Kevin Brady, representing the city landlord association, said that constraints on rental properities around the university would, through supply and demand, push student rents higher. With more rental income, landlords could invest more in improvements, Brady said. MORE Flynn said that dynamics already in process are prodding landlords to make improvements. Noting that Winona State has expanded the inventory of on-campus dorm space over the last two years, softening the rental market, landlords are improving their places to entice renters, he said.

OWNER- OCCUPIED HOUSING 575 units CERTI- FIED RENTAL UNITS 431 units Single 248 units Duplex 100 units Multi 75 units Sleeping rooms 5 units LAURA BERENS Stdents risk being priced out of WSU-area housing RYAN FLYNN Let rental market respond to demand

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