The attorney for a Hobart man charged in the murder of a Chesterton bartender is asking a Porter County judge to reconsider an April decision not to grant a change of venue for the trial because of pretrial publicity.
In a motion filed recently, defense attorney Bob Harper asked Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer to reconsider his decision. The motion, accompanied by five pages citing regional print and television stories about the case, notes that “many of those exhibits referred to the defendant confessing to murdering the victim in this case.”
The motion goes on to note that there was extensive news coverage of the case and “there was extensive news coverage that specifically discussed the fact that the defendant had confessed.”
In December, the Indiana Supreme Court denied a petition to transfer the case there, allowing to stand an appellate court ruling to suppress as evidence Dillard’s confession statements made during a nightlong interrogation at the Chesterton Police Station.
Dillard, 53, is charged with murder in the April 2017 death of Nicole Gland, 23, of Portage. Both worked at the Upper Deck Lounge in Chesterton; Dillard was a bouncer there. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in Porter County Jail without bond.
Harper had requested either a change of venue or for an out of county jury to be brought in for the trial but Clymer ruled during an April hearing that pretrial publicity at that point did not require doing either. Clymer said then that a juror questionnaire and calling a larger pool of prospective jurors would provide an impartial panel.
“If it becomes apparent during jury selection that we cannot obtain an impartial jury in this county, I will reconsider a motion for a change of venue at that time,” Clymer said then.
Harper does not expect the matter to come up during a discovery hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Monday before Clymer requested by prosecutors. The focus of that hearing is about DNA testing of a strand of hair from the rear passenger window trim of the vehicle that Gland’s body was found in.
In order to do the DNA testing, according to court documents, “the potential genetic material from the hair strand will be completely consumed.”
Harper does not expect his second request to move the trial to come up during that hearing.
“I think (Clymer) will just file for a denial at some point. I don’t think it will come up Monday but it might,” Harper said, adding he wanted the request on file for any future appeals that might be filed in the case.
Harper said in his motion that when screening potential jurors, “obviously I’m not going to be able to ask the question have you read that the defendant confessed to this matter.”
The attached list of media stories, he said, all included “information that the defendant had confessed and the statement had been suppressed.”
Clymer assured Harper during the April hearing that jurors would not hear the inadmissible evidence at any time.
