Hosemann is indicted

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, April 23, 2002

[04/23/02]Warren County Court Judge Gerald Hosemann has been ordered to stand trial on charges that he beat and seriously injured his former court reporter.

In an indictment handed down Monday, a Hinds County grand jury said enough evidence exists for the 50-year-old county judge to have jurors decide whether he is guilty of the aggravated assault charges filed against him in Hinds County.

Hosemann was charged Dec. 28 with an attack on Juanita “Nita” Johnston, his former court reporter with whom she has said he’d had a longterm personal relationship.

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“We hope to have a trial as quickly as we can have one,” said Hosemann’s attorney, William Kirksey of Jackson. Kirksey said he filed papers Monday asking the court for a speedy trial.

Meanwhile this morning, the executive director of the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance, Brant Brantley, said his group would meet soon to decide whether it will recommend to the Mississippi Supreme Court that Hosemann be removed from the bench until the case is resolved.

The judge has continued to hear cases in county court and Warren County Youth Court since the charges were filed.

In court Monday, Hosemann was officially made aware of the indictment by Circuit Court Judge L. Breland Hilburn. Hosemann told the court he was not guilty, chief Hinds County Assistant District Attorney Robert Taylor said.

According to court papers made public Monday afternoon, grand jurors indicted Hosemann on the first day of their most recent meeting, April 15.

The indictment sets the public trial process in motion. No trial date was set Monday afternoon, Taylor said.

“Hopefully we will get it tried this year,” he said.

Barring a change of venue or another pre-empting event such as a plea agreement, a trial would be held in the courthouse in Raymond, a spokesman in the Hinds County Circuit Clerk’s Office in Raymond said.

Hilburn currently hears cases on the Raymond court docket, but he has announced plans to retire May 31, state Administrative Office of Courts spokesman Beverly Pettigrew Kraft said. If the trial commences before then, Hilburn would hear the case, Kraft said.

Otherwise, who would hear a trial is less clear, Kraft said. Hilburn’s replacement, whom Gov. Ronnie Musgrove would appoint, could hear the case, or the senior Hinds County Circuit Court judge could reassign it to another judge.

Johnston, 48, was found seriously injured on Hosemann’s property near Utica Dec. 6. The judge was arrested three weeks later, after a Hinds County Sheriff’s Department investigator said in a sworn statement that Johnston had identified him as her attacker.

Johnston spent until Dec. 28 in ParkView Regional Medical Center in Vicksburg before being moved to University Medical Center in Jackson. She was released from the hospital Jan. 9.

The Hinds County Sheriff’s Department Investigator’s statement after speaking with Johnston on Dec. 28 said Johnston “feels she was left to die on Hosemann’s property.” In a March 7 letter to Kirksey, however, Johnston said she had grown “able to remember more clearly, and that Judge Hosemann has been wrongfully accused.” She also asked that the case be dismissed. Three days later, she said she still loved the judge.

On Monday, Johnston called the indictment “a gross, gross miscarriage of justice” and called it “political and personal.” She said she repeatedly asked Hinds County District Attorney Faye Peterson for the chance to be heard by the grand jury but was denied.

“I was not heard, and I resent that,” she said. “I begged to be heard.”

Peterson could not be reached for comment.

Grand juries, on which 18 people chosen from voter rolls are called to serve, normally hear in secret only the prosecution’s evidence against defendants.

The grand jury also could have returned a “no bill” in the case. Cases that are no-billed may be dropped or presented to a later grand jury.

Hosemann has been the county court judge since 1986, hearing county and youth court matters. Hosemann, who remains free on a $25,000 bond, did not return a call to his office. He and others involved in the case are under a gag order by Hinds County Judge Bobby DeLaughter and are barred from comment about pending charges.

When Hosemann was released Dec. 29 he was ordered by DeLaughter not to contact or come within 500 feet of Johnston, leave the continental United States, apply for a passport or possess firearms or other weapons and to attend an anger-management program directed by court counseling services.

Soon after Hosemann’s arrest, the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance considered and decided against recommending to the state Supreme Court that Hosemann be suspended while the charge was pending against him.

“We declined to recommend an interim suspension because the case was still under investigation and the judge had not been indicted,” Brantley said this morning. “Now that there has been an indictment, the commission will be in a position to revisit the issue, and I would expect that the commission will do that as expeditiously as possible.”