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CHASE SQUIRESThe jurist slated to hear the murder case recuses himself, and the defense attorney wants to move the trial out of Pasco.
DADE CITY - With two weeks to go until her scheduled murder trial, Kristina Gaime's attorneys want to have the trial moved out of Pasco County, and the judge scheduled to hear it removed himself from the case.
Gaime, 38, of Land O'Lakes is accused of killing one son and trying to kill another and herself in what authorities allege was a failed murder-suicide in 1999. After more than four years in jail, Gaime was scheduled for trial Dec. 1 on a charge of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
Gaime's attorney, Lyann Goudie of Tampa, in Monday's court documents likened Gaime's case to two other infamous murder cases. She said there are similarities to the Susan Smith and Andrea Yates cases, both involving mothers who murdered their children.
Goudie last week had asked Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb to step aside, saying she and Gaime thought he was biased against them. In her motion, Goudie argued she did not have to prove bias; her and Gaime's own belief was sufficient cause. Cobb, in his ruling Monday, agreed the motion was "legally sufficient."
He said he did not know if his recusal would delay the trial or which judge would be assigned to the case. Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper is a possibility, Cobb said. She is slated to take over criminal cases beginning Jan. 1 as part of the regular judicial rotations. Cobb is set to assume oversight of civil court.
Goudie, who earlier this month failed in a bid to have the trial delayed, also filed new motions Monday to move the trial out of Pasco County, to have the search of Gaime's home declared unconstitutional, to bar some testimony involving Gaime's surviving son and to have prospective jurors fill out a questionnaire before jury selection.
In the sample 22-page, 109-item questionnaire Goudie submitted, she would ask jurors about their knowledge of the case, their race or ethnic background, their involvement in religious organizations and their childhood and family, among other things.
"This is not an average criminal case, and it is not an average publicity case," Goudie wrote. "The potential jurors will be confronting enormous pressure from a variety of sources, most significantly from the media and attendant publicity."
That publicity includes 234 newspaper articles and hundreds of television news reports, Goudie argued in her bid to move the trial out of Pasco.
The publicity makes it hard to get a fair trial, she argued. Reports that Gaime's first defense team indicated they would rely on an insanity defense, which Goudie argued would indicate Gaime did commit acts alleged by the state, would be especially damaging in the public's mind, Goudie wrote.
"The community has displayed an enormous outpouring of interest, hostility and anger over the allegations," Goudie wrote. "Allegations which involve a mother murdering her children produce the most visceral reactions from people in the community. To understand this, one needs to look no further than the Susan Smith case and the Andrea Yates case."
She was referring to cases involving Smith, who murdered her two sons in a small South Carolina town, and Yates, who murdered her five children in Houston. Both cases were tried in the cities where the murders took place.
Authorities say sometime the night of April 11 or early April 12, 1999, Gaime drugged her children - Mathew Rotell, 6, and Adam Rotell, then 8 - and loaded them into the family minivan before directing the van's exhaust into the passenger cabin and getting inside herself. Her parents found her and Adam alive inside their home on April 12. Mathew was dead inside the van.
Gaime was arrested May 5, 1999, and has remained in custody since.
Goudie argued the case has been the subject of "pervasive, biased and prejudicial media coverage." Moving the trial to Pinellas County would be acceptable, she wrote.
Goudie also claims in new motions that detectives either fabricated or omitted information when they applied for search warrants for Gaime's townhouse and that they searched the home before they obtained a warrant and exceeded the scope of the warrant, uncovering many bottles of medicine and letters Gaime wrote that could be used against her. She wants the evidence kept out of the trial.
And Goudie said some of the statements Gaime's surviving son made to detectives are unreliable and can't be admitted at trial.
It will be up to the new judge to rule on those motions, Cobb said. No date has been set for the hearings.
Prosecutor Phil Van Allen said he had not reviewed all of the motions, but he said typically the courts require attorneys to try to select a jury before agreeing to move the trial to another area.
- Chase Squires covers east Pasco courts. He can be reached at 352 521-5757, ext. 27 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6108, then 27. His e-mail address is squires@sptimes.com