Murder trial begins in Beatrice
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By CARA PESEK / Lincoln Journal Star
BEATRICE — The facts of this Gage County District Court trial —groundbreaking in that video cameras are recording it — aren’t disputed.
Early on Nov. 17, 43-year-old Richard Allen Griswold called 911 and told the dispatcher he’d shot his girlfriend.
Griswold and 49-year-old Connie Eacret had been fighting, Griswold told the dispatcher. They had been drinking the night before and fought because Eacret wasn’t sure of her feelings for him.
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He fired a shot through their bedroom ceiling. Eacret called Griswold’s mother, and asked her to come get her son; she refused.
Minutes later, a little after 5 a.m., Griswold shot Eacret beneath the right eye, set the gun he’d owned for just a few weeks on the table and then called 911.
Lawyers representing the state and Griswold agreed Monday in opening statements to the jury — and to the public — that’s what happened in Eacret’s two-story, Ella Street home early on Nov. 17, 2007.
They disagreed over whether Griswold’s actions constituted first-degree murder — with which he is charged — or a lesser offense such as manslaughter.
Prosecuting attorney Doug Warner described Eacret’s death as gruesome. She was shot at very close range, he said. Griswold fired at least two other shots in the house, Warner said — in the bedroom and another in the kitchen.
But Gage County Public Defender Stephanie Clark said Eacret and Griswold loved each other. The fight, she said, came after a night of heavy drinking. And Griswold at some point that morning had taken 20 Valium tablets.
“This is not a case where we’re asking you to consider that Rick has no responsibility,” she told the jury. She asked them to consider that Griswold hadn’t intended to shoot Eacret, who died after being transported to a Lincoln hospital.
As jury members weigh the evidence and witness testimony, the public can do the same.
Griswold’s trial is the first in Nebraska — outside of the State Supreme Court — to be be videotaped for broadcast.
A recent State Supreme Court decision opened the door to video cameras in Nebraska courtrooms, and Gage County District Judge Paul W. Korslund, presiding over Griswold’s trial, jumped at the opportunity.
Korslund, a former Beatrice mayor, said he found that broadcasting city council meetings on public access television heightened public awareness of the issues. Radio broadcasts of Gage County sentencings a few years ago did, too.
Broadcasting trials, he said, is a way to show the public how the Nebraska judicial system works.
Other states already have allowed video cameras into their courtrooms, Korslund said. The Nebraska program is modeled off a similar program in Iowa, he said.
And it’s time, he said, that Nebraska follow suit.
As a judge, Korslund hears stories about days gone by when the public showed up to observe trials. That doesn’t happen anymore.
“That’s just not possible for most people,” he said.
But the new program — which allows different media outlets to share footage for broadcast on television, radio and online — will give the public a chance to observe the process in action.
The trial will continue today, and so will the videotaping.
Korslund said he expected the trial to continue through at least Thursday.
Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@jounalstar.com.
Publishing opinions about the guilt, innocence or character of the accused in open criminal cases can affect that person's constitutional right to a fair trial. For that reason, JournalStar.com has chosen not to accept user comments on this story.