CHAPTER 25

FEDERAL JUDGE RULING

Front cover of Federal Judge Julie Carnes’s decision.

Summary of Federal Judge Julie Carnes’s decision.

CHRONOLOGY

March 2003—Judge Julie E. Carnes, United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, 11th Judicial District, writes a 93-page ruling dismissing a defamation case against the Ramseys before trial.

THERE IS ALWAYS A BACKGROUND BUZZ on any day of a high-profile criminal trial. People arrive early to get a seat, and everyone has their own agenda, whether they’re a cop, reporter, attorney or interested observer. There is a familiarity among the regulars who have been following the trial, and when the defendant enters the courtroom, most glance their way. What is the posture, the facial expression and the demeanor of the person on trial? What are they wearing?

As events proceed, detectives wait in the hallway to be called to testify, and there are also witnesses for the defense, depending on how far along the trial is. The prosecutor is focused on the next step, where the case will go. The defense attorney is doing the same. Both are wondering what, if anything, the other has that they haven’t anticipated. This is their chance to bring it all out, to present to the best of their ability their side of the case and question the witnesses from the other side.

Had the Ramseys gone to a criminal trial—which is what Boulder Police Department officials wanted—it would have been a huge media event, just as the O. J. Simpson trial was in 1995. But Boulder detectives could never make a case that was substantial enough for a criminal trial that the Boulder DA and the three appointed outside prosecutors would support.

The Ramseys did go to court, but not because they were ever arrested on criminal charges. They filed nine slander and libel lawsuits against various media organizations. Eight were settled out of court in favor of the Ramsey family, with substantial financial settlements, although the exact amounts of the settlements remain confidential. The ninth lawsuit was settled in favor of the defendant, but the Ramseys did not pay any damages.

Two additional defamation cases were filed against John and Patsy Ramsey by people who felt they were unfairly named as possible suspects in the couple’s book, The Death of Innocence, which was published in 2000. One case was settled with no damages awarded. The other suit, Wolf vs. Ramsey, was dismissed before trial, but the evidence that came out in that suit created a reliable blueprint for what might have transpired had there been a criminal trial.

Robert Christian Wolf filed the lawsuit, and key information was revealed by three people from whom investigators took depositions: former Boulder Detective Steve Thomas, who had resigned from the BPD and written a book accusing Patsy Ramsey of killing her daughter; Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner, who began investigating the case within three weeks of when JonBenét’s body was found; and retired Detective Lou Smit. Smit’s job of documenting incoming police reports and evidence had convinced him the Ramseys were innocent.

All three men testified under oath in depositions and answered questions for attorneys on both sides of the case. A deposition is held to gather basic facts and to establish baseline information before a trial. It provides a way to discover more information from probable witnesses. There is no criminal court cross-examination with depositions.

In March 2003, Federal Judge Julie Carnes wrote a rare analysis defending the Ramseys after reviewing all the pre-trial depositions in the case. She dissected the testimony and dismissed the case before trial. For clarification, the plaintiff was Robert Christian Wolf. The defendants were John and Patsy Ramsey.

“In sum, plaintiff [Wolf] has failed to prove that Mrs. Ramsey wrote the Ransom Note and has thereby necessarily failed to prove that she murdered her daughter. Moreover, the weight of the evidence is more consistent with a theory that an intruder murdered JonBenét than it is with a theory that Mrs. Ramsey did so,” Judge Carnes wrote.

Before she noted the evidence for her ruling, Judge Carnes revealed her guidelines for judging the evidence or “material facts.” The judge considered the statements of facts where the Ramseys and the plaintiff agreed. When looking at a list of facts and evidence where they didn’t agree, Judge Carnes said she ruled in “the light most favorable to plaintiff”—i.e., Mr. Wolf, the person suing the Ramseys.

The text from Judge Carnes provides a unique perspective into the case from someone not involved in the Ramsey investigation. She did not live in Colorado (the jurisdiction for the Wolf vs. Ramsey case was in Atlanta) and had not been exposed to the publicity overload related to the case that had been experienced by residents of Colorado. The judge’s job was to be an impartial, neutral, legal observer in reviewing the testimony before trial. Some of the judge’s conclusions are as follows:

Plaintiff, however, contends that Mrs. Ramsey did not go to sleep the night of December 25, but instead killed her daughter and spent the rest of the night covering her crime, as evidenced by the fact she was wearing the same outfit the following morning … He further posits that Mrs. Ramsey authored the Ransom Note in an attempt to stage a crime scene to make it appear as if an intruder had entered their home … Plaintiff theorizes that, at some point in the night, JonBenét awoke after wetting her bed … and upon learning of the bed-wetting, Mrs. Ramsey grew so angry that an “explosive encounter in the child’s bathroom” occurred, during which tirade, Mrs. Ramsey “slammed” JonBenét’s head against “a hard surface such as the edge of the tub, inflicting a mortal head wound.” Plaintiff has provided no evidence for this particular theory.

… The above theory is merely speculation by plaintiff as to what might have motivated Mrs. Ramsey to act so violently toward her daughter.

Crime scene photos taken the following morning do not indicate that JonBenét’s bed was wet or suggest that the sheets to the bed had been changed … Urine stains, however, were reported to have been found on JonBenét’s underwear and leggings that she was wearing when her body was discovered … Thus, at some point after going to bed, but before being murdered, JonBenét urinated in her clothing. The evidence does not indicate whether this occurred in her bedroom, the basement, or during the route between the two rooms.

Plaintiff [Wolf] further contends, based again solely on Mr. [ex-Detective Steve] Thomas’s speculation that “Mrs. Ramsey thought JonBenét was dead, but in fact she was unconscious with her heart still beating … ” Mr. Thomas then surmises that “it was that critical moment in which she had to either call for help or find an alternative explanation for her daughter’s death.” … Plaintiff then speculates that Mrs. Ramsey chose the latter route and spent the remainder of the night staging an elaborate cover up of the incident.

… In Mr. Thomas’s scenario then, rather than being grateful that her child was alive, Mrs. Ramsey nevertheless decided to finish the job off by fashioning a garrote from one of her paintbrushes, looping the cord around the girl’s neck, and then choking JonBenét to death … Plaintiff notes that the fact JonBenét was “choked from behind” is consistent with the murder being committed by someone who knew JonBenét and did not want to look at her face while killing her.

After murdering her child and staging the crime, plaintiff opines that, to cover her tracks, Mrs. Ramsey must have taken the items used in the staging out of the house, “perhaps dropping them into a nearby storm sewer or among Christmas debris and wrappings in a neighbor’s trash can.” … Indeed, the sources for the duct tape and cord used in the crime were never located, nor sourced … to the defendant’s home. Plaintiff claims that Mrs. Ramsey next placed the Ransom Note in a place “where she could be sure to ‘find’ it.

Judge Carnes noted in her report that Mrs. Ramsey “disputes” the plaintiff’s recitation of facts. The judge details what Patsy Ramsey’s version of the events in question. Then, Judge Carnes turned her attention to John Ramsey:

Plaintiff contends Mr. Ramsey probably first grew suspicious while reading the Ransom Note that morning, which surmise is again based solely on the opinion of Mr. Thomas … Plaintiff speculates that upon examining the Ransom Note, Mr. Ramsey “must have seen his wife’s writing mannerisms allover [sic] it, everything but her signature … ” Upon determining that his wife was involved in JonBenét’s disappearance, plaintiff [sic] surmises that Mr. Ramsey chose to protect his wife, rather than to facilitate the capture of his daughter’s murderer … Mr. Ramsey asserts, however, that he never once suspected his wife to be involved in the crime.

Later in her ruling, Judge Carnes returned to Thomas’s description of how Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter:

JonBenét’s body was bound with complicated rope slipknots and a garrote attached to her body … The slipknots and the garrote are both sophisticated bondage devices designed to give control to the user … Evidence from these devices suggests they were made by someone with expertise using rope and cords, which cords could not be found or “sourced” within the defendant’s home …

No evidence exists that either defendant knew how to tie such knots.

[O]ther fiber evidence supports an inference that some of these items from outside the home were, at one time, in the second floor area near JonBenét’s bedroom. That is; fibers consistent with those of the cord used to make the slipknots and garrote were found on JonBenét’s bed. (SMF 168; PSMF 168.)

The judge again took issue with ex-detective Thomas’s testimony concerning the digestion rate of pineapple, which was found in JonBenét’s stomach. “Relying solely on the testimony of Mr. Thomas, who has no apparent expertise as a medical examiner, plaintiff fixed the time of death at around one a.m. ‘suggested by the digestion rate of pineapple found in the child’s stomach.’ … The coroner’s report does indicate that a vegetable or fruit matter consistent with pineapple was found in JonBenét’s stomach during the autopsy … The report, however, does not establish a time of death based on the digestion rate of the unidentified matter.” The other fruit matter, grapes and cherries, was not discussed in the judge’s report.

Judge Carnes went on to describe “a series of events … that severely compromised the crime scene.” She then detailed some of the noteworthy mistakes the police made the morning JonBenét was reported missing.

Judge Carnes also cited her reasons for disqualifying one handwriting expert for the plaintiff and partially disqualifying the second one. Neither the defendants nor the Boulder Police Department had consulted these handwriting analysts during the initial stages of the case. The second expert, who was partially disqualified by the judge, was eliminated because: “The Court, however, has concluded that [the handwriting examiner] cannot properly testify that he is certain that Mrs. Ramsey was the author of the Note.”

The following excerpts are from several pages of comment about the ransom note from Judge Carnes:

At first blush, and even without an appraisal of the handwriting, the Ransom Note seems to support plaintiff’s argument that the kidnapping was a hoax set up by someone in the house. It is an extremely long and detailed note of over three pages. Moreover an examination of the notepad on which the note was written indicates that the writer had attempted some earlier drafts of the note. In addition, the writer had apparently not even brought his own materials, but instead had used a note pad and felt marker from the Ramsey’s [sic] home. These facts suggest that the killer had not come prepared with a ransom note already written, as one would expect a diligent kidnapper to do. Further, one does not assume that an intruder, intent on beating a hasty retreat, would take the time to practice writing a note or to write a long, detailed note. These assumptions then might suggest that someone in the house contrived the note.

Defendants have argued, however, that it is just as plausible that the killer had been hiding away in the home for many hours, waiting for the household to go to sleep, before he sprung into action. That waiting time would have allowed him the leisure to write a note. Further the length of time that it took to practice and write the note could also conceivably undermine a notion that Mrs. Ramsey wrote it. Under plaintiff’s scenario, Mrs. Ramsey was working quickly to create a staged crime scene before her husband and son awoke. Given those time constraints, and presumably a desire to provide as little handwriting as possible for purposes of future analysis, she arguably would not have written such a long note. Accordingly, the existence of this peculiar, long Ransom Note does not necessarily favor, as the killer, either an intruder or Mrs. Ramsey.

During the investigation, the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder District Attorney’s Office consulted at least six handwriting experts. All of these experts consulted the original Ransom Note and original handwriting exemplars by Mrs. Ramsey. Four of these experts were hired by the police and two were hired by the defendants. All six experts agreed that Mr. Ramsey could be eliminated as the author of the Ransom Note. None of the six consulted experts identified Mrs. Ramsey as the author of the Ransom Note. Rather, the experts’ consensus was that she “probably did not” write the Ransom Note. On a scale of one to five, with five being elimination as the author of the Ransom Note, the experts placed Mrs. Ramsey at a 4.5 or a 4.0. The experts described the chance of Mrs. Ramsey being the author of the Ransom Note as “very low.”

The fact that there may be similarities between the two [Mrs. Ramsey’s handwriting and the Ransom Note] hardly constitutes persuasive evidence that Mrs. Ramsey actually wrote the Note. Without that proof, plaintiff cannot show that Mrs. Ramsey was the killer.

In the “Investigation of the Murder” portion of the ruling, Judge Carnes discussed the qualifications of the Boulder Police Department investigators, saying that they “had limited experience in conducting a murder investigation … Commander John Eller was primarily responsible for the investigation, which was his first murder investigation … One lead detective assigned to the case, Steven Thomas, had no prior experience with a murder investigation and had previously served as an undercover narcotics officer … Finally, the officer who took charge of the investigation in October 1997, Mark Beckner, also had limited homicide experience.”

The judge also discussed the role of the media in the case:

Pursuant to the FBI’s suggestions that the Boulder Police publicly name defendants as subjects and apply intense media pressure to them so that they would confess to the crime, the police released many statements that implied defendants were guilty and were not cooperating with police … In addition to official police releases, many individual officers also released information about the investigation without official authorization, some of which disclosures were highly confidential and potentially undermined the investigation.

She discussed cooperation by the family as well:

During the course of the investigation, defendants signed over one hundred releases for information requested by the police and provided all evidence and information requested by the police … Upon request, within days after the murder and in the months that followed, defendants provided the police with historical handwriting samples and supervised written exemplars … Defendants also gave hair, including pubic hair, and DNA samples to the police … Despite widespread criticism that defendants failed to cooperate in the murder investigation, defendants note that they agreed, on at least three occasions, to be interviewed separately by representatives of the police or the Boulder County District Attorneys Office.

Judge Carnes also ruled on “Evidence in Support of the Intruder Theory,” writing:

[A]fter a half-decade investigation into the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, and [a] year-long grand jury investigation, no plausible evidence proves Patsy Ramsey had anything to do with the murder of her child. Every prosecutor to examine this case agreed that no charge or crime should have been brought against (defendants).

Certain undisputed evidence of how defendants’ house was found on the morning of December 26 is also consistent with the intruder theory of the crime. For example, the lights were on in the basement, when first searched at approximately 6:15 a.m. that day … In addition, the butler’s door to the kitchen was found ajar that morning … Defendants note that the butler’s door was only a short distance away from the spiral staircase where the Ransom Note was found and within plain view of where the pad of paper used for the Ransom Note was found … Moreover, contrary to media reports that had discredited an intruder theory based on the lack of a “footprint in the snow,” there was no snow covering the sidewalks and walkways to defendants’ home on the morning of December 26, 1996 … Hence, [a] person walking along these paths would have left no footprints.

Defendants further aver that the undisputed physical evidence is not consistent with an “accidental killing” followed by staging … but instead is more consistent with a theory that the intruder subdued JonBenét in her bedroom and then took her to the basement, where she was sexually assaulted and subsequently murdered. First, JonBenét’s body was found bound with complicated and sophisticated bondage devices, namely neatly-made rope slipknots and a garrote designed to give control to the user … The parties agree that such devices necessarily were made by someone with expertise in bondage … While it is certainly possible that defendants possessed such unusual and specialized skills, there is no evidence that establishes this fact. Obviously, if defendants lacked the skills to fashion the bondage device, then it necessarily had to be an intruder who crafted the implement.

Of course, plaintiff’s primary theory, taken from Detective

Steve Thomas’s book, is that Mrs. Ramsey murdered her daughter and staged the scene. According to this theory, Mr. Ramsey becomes complicit only the next day, after the Note was discovered, when he realized that the handwriting on the Note was his wife’s … Under this proposed timeline, he would not have been involved in making the bondage device.

Although most of Detective Smit’s conclusions derive from his analysis of physical evidence, he has also testified that he has been unable to find any motive for defendants to murder their daughter … Absent from the defendants’ family history is any evidence of criminal conduct, sexual abuse, drug or alcohol abuse or violent behavior … In addition, there was no evidence that JonBenét’s bed was wet on the night of her murder.

Defendants point to evidence from the autopsy report indicating that a stun gun was used on JonBenét … Because it is logical to assume that JonBenét would struggle against an attacker she did not already know, the use of a stun gun helps to explain why no evidence of a struggle was found in any of the bedrooms in defendants’ home. Further, defendants state that they have never owned nor operated a stun gun … In addition, no stun gun was ever located at defendants’ home, nor is there any evidence that defendants have ever owned such a gun. Further, the parties agree that a stun gun could be used and not heard in other rooms of a house.

Plaintiff does not agree that a stun gun was used, however, arguing that the evidence establishing the same is inconclusive. Yet although plaintiff disputes that a stun gun was used in the murder, he has failed to produce any evidence to suggest what caused the burn-like marks on JonBenét.

Admittedly, it is not unprecedented for parents to kill their children, sometimes even brutally. Yet plaintiff’s theory of the motivation for the crime—that Mrs. Ramsey accidentally hit JonBenét’s head on a hard object, presumed she was dead, and then tried to stage a hoax kidnapping—seems at odds with his belief that although Mrs. Ramsey later became aware that JonBenét was alive, she nonetheless proceeded to garrote, torture, and sexually assault her child. If Mrs. Ramsey had accidentally hit her child’s head, one would think that, upon becoming aware that the child was still alive, the mother would have been just as likely to call an ambulance, as to commit a depraved torture/murder of the child.

Detective Smit states JonBenét was a “pedophile’s dream come true” … JonBenét received considerable public attention as “Little Miss Colorado” and through several beauty pageants in which she participated … On December 6, 1996, three weeks before the murder, she was in the Lights of December Parade, an event thousands of people attended.

When she threw out the lawsuit, Judge Carnes faulted the Boulder Police Department and former detective Steve Thomas and censured the plaintiff’s attorney, Darnay Hoffman.

Judge Carnes explained only once why she wrote the ruling. In 2009, in an article for The National Law Journal, “Fulton County Daily Report,” she commented on the Ramsey case, saying the media “had played the story very differently.”

“What it teaches,” she added, “is that drawing broad information based on very limited and selective evidence is a very dangerous thing to do.”1

On January 1, 2009, Federal Judge Julie Carnes was promoted to Chief Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Patsy and John Ramsey read the decision and were encouraged. Patsy said, “Finally someone in authority at the highest level knew we didn’t kill our daughter.” John reflected, “I wonder if it will make a difference with Boulder police and cause them to rethink their theories about us.” Years later he added, “It didn’t make a difference to them. They were still after us as our daughter’s killers.”