A judge sends Jennifer Porter's parents home to think over their refusal to answer questions about a hit-and-run, saying he could hold them in contempt of court.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published April 17, 2004
[Times photo: Stefanie Boyar]
James and Lillian Porter attend a hearing Friday, where they tried to assert their Fifth Amendment rights.
TAMPA - The parents of a young woman implicated in a hit-and-run accident that killed two children told a judge Friday they would rather go to jail than answer questions about their daughter's role in the collision.
James and Lillian Porter, looking frazzled and scared, appeared before Hillsborough County Judge Walter Heinrich and asserted their Fifth Amendment rights to refuse a subpoena issued earlier Friday by the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office.
Heinrich warned the parents of Jennifer Porter he could jail them for refusing to disclose what they know about the March 31 collision, in which two brothers died and two other siblings were injured as they crossed 22nd Street at 142nd Avenue.
Heinrich gave the Porters' lawyer, Ralph Fernandez, until Tuesday, when another hearing is scheduled, to prepare an argument for why the couple should not be held for contempt.
"I'm not going to find the Porters in contempt today and put them in jail," Heinrich told Fernandez, who had been hired just hours earlier.
But Heinrich said he will decide at Tuesday's 1:30 p.m. hearing if he will let the Porters remain silent or send them to jail for up to six months for refusing to respond to questions from authorities.
The Porters, of Land O' Lakes, said nothing, letting Fernandez reiterate their "blanket refusal."
Lillian Porter, a teacher's aide at Lake Myrtle Elementary in Land O'Lakes, clutched a baby blue sweater. Her face was pale, her hair tousled. James Porter, a postal worker, put his hand on her shoulder.
The Porters, who weeks ago approached the mother of the victims in the crash to offer their condolences, are now being forced to choose between shielding their daughter or possibly providing information that helps bring criminal charges against her.
"It's a horrible situation because no parent wants to be in the position in a homicide case of testifying against a child," said one observer, defense attorney John Fitzgibbons. "What is sad and ironic here is that perhaps the strongest evidence the state will have against (Jennifer) will come from the parents."
Porter has not been charged in the crash.
On March 31, two brothers died in a hit-and-run collision and evidence at the scene sent Hillsborough sheriff's investigators on a quest for a Toyota Echo.
On April 2, lawyer Barry Cohen told investigators they could find the car at the Porters' tidy home just across the Pasco County line. It was inside the family's garage, damaged and stained with blood and human tissue.
On April 5, the 28-year-old dance teacher, and her parents and sister, held a news conference at Cohen's office. She offered an apology but no details of what occurred. Cohen said she had been driving the car on the evening of the collision. The Toyota is registered to her father and younger sister.
Investigative documents released this week show that shortly after the 7:10 p.m. crash, she used her cell phone to call the home she shares with her parents and sister.
During an April 7 search of the home, investigators confiscated an answering machine on which Porter may have made "statements about the crash," according to the documents.
The hastily called hearing Friday came nearly four hours after the Porters refused to comply with a subpoena requiring them to answer questions from prosecutors.
Instead, Fernandez called Hillsborough prosecutor Kim Seace at 11:10 a.m. and said his clients would not answer questions.
"I advised them they do not have a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent," Seace told Heinrich in court. "Yet they refused to give any information other than name, date of birth and Social Security number."
In arguing for the state attorney's right to interview Porter's parents, Seace told Heinrich the Toyota Echo suspected of being the crash vehicle is registered to James Porter.
"We are investigating who drove the vehicle and struck the children," she said.
In state court, a prosecutor's investigative subpoena provides automatic immunity to the person answering questions, provided the information is truthful.
"That immunity takes away the Fifth Amendment, which basically is invoked to protect yourself," said Fitzgibbons. "The bottom line is, you have an absolute legal obligation to provide testimony."
In some cases, a person can argue that doctor-client privilege or spousal privilege exempts them from answering questions, Fitzgibbons said. But in Florida, parents have no such protection.
"In this one, it seems crystal clear to me that the mother and father will testify, or they'll go to jail," he said.
Rick Terrana, another defense lawyer, said a person can claim the protection against self-incrimination of the Fifth Amendment "if one has a reasonable belief that answering the questions would open them up to criminal liability."
Prosecutors have not indicated that Lillian and James Porter are suspects. But Fitzgibbons said the immunity that comes with the subpoena would not protect someone who later is found to have helped cover up a crime.
"If they merely listened to what Jennifer had to say and did nothing overtly in response, that's one thing," he said. "If they helped cover up the crime, they could be accessories."
Fernandez told the judge he will use the time leading up to Tuesday's hearing to "meet with the state and come up with another solution."
"That would be appreciated," Heinrich said. "Because the last thing I want to do is put these people in jail. But I will do it if I have to."
- Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at svansickler@sptimes.com or 813 226-3373.
