9-4-13 attorney confident fdl woman will get a new trial

An Appleton attorney says he is confident of prevailing when he makes oral arguments Wednesday afternoon before the state Supreme Court in a Fond du Lac County homicide case.   Len Kachinsky tells WFDL news the case of State vs. Nancy Pinno involves an important issue of the right of the public to view jury selection in high profile cases where prospective jurors take up much of the seating in a courtroom.  In the Pinno case and the case of Travis Seaton Fond du Lac judge Richard Nuss ordered spectators and media out of the courtroom during jury selection.  "The judge gave in his reason the lack of room and also fear that the jury pool might be contaminated by remarks from some of the spectators.  The cases from throughout the country are pretty clear that that's insufficient, that there are means a judge can use short of excluding the public to achieve that end,"  Kachinsky said.  Kachinsky says in neither case did the trial attorney object and the question is was this ineffective assistance of counsel or did the defendants waive their right to a public trial by not objecting?  "The judge didn't really ask the parties before he entered the order, he just did it.  Its certainly true that she (Pinno's attorney) could have objected but probably she was so surprised by it she hadn't given the matter much thought."  Kachinsky says he believes the judge honestly thought he was doing what he was allowed to do when he had such a large jury venire and there were some problems with adequate seating in the courtroom.  Kachinsky has handled several high profile homicide cases over the years…but says until now he has never seen a judge remove the public from the courtroom during jury selection.  "This is the first time I've ever seen it happen.  I noticed after we had the motion hearing in this case, I had another homicide case in Oshkosh and also in Appleton and I noticed in both of those cases the judges took particular care to make sure that the public was commited to be there by some means,"  Kachinsky added.   A decision by the
Supreme Court is expected before the end of the year.   If Pinno and or Seaton prevail they would be granted a new trial.   Pinno was convicted of helping her son cover up the murder of his girlfriend.  Seaton was convicted of killing a Fond du Lac man when he punched him, and the victim fell and struck his head on the sidewalk in downtown Fond du lac.