NEWS
Court postpones Stanley hearing
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by Heather Quitos
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Former University of Wisconsin running back Booker Stanley will have to wait longer to hear the fate of his pending criminal charges as the Dane County court postponed his preliminary hearing until a later date.
Stanley appeared in court Tuesday and faces charges of second-degree sexual assault, second-degree recklessly endangering safety, four misdemeanor counts of battery and various counts of bail-jumping stemming from separate incidents which occurred last December and in April 2005.
Originally, Stanley had requested to waive the preliminary hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, but later changed his mind.
"Last Friday, at approximately noon I informed [the court] … that Mr. Stanley intended to waive his preliminary hearing," Stanley's public defense attorney Dennis E. Burke said. "In the interim, Mr. Stanley has reconsidered his decision and has informed me that he wishes to proceed with the preliminary hearing."
Stanley's appearance in the downtown courthouse was brief, but he did appear with various family members.
Judge David Flanagan, who will decide the case, said Stanley's preliminary hearing will be rescheduled sometime within the next three weeks.
UW law professor David Schultz said a decision to waive a preliminary hearing is normal in Wisconsin if the defense feels there is little to gain from it.
"It's common to waive a preliminary hearing," he said. "The state doesn't have to put on an extreme amount of evidence to get it to trial and the defense doesn't have much of a chance for cross examination."
Schultz, however, did not speculate about why Stanley changed his mind.
"Unless you were the lawyer or the defendant there's no way to know," he said.
According to Schultz, the nature of the preliminary hearing is to "weed out" cases with no evidential basis before going to trial.
But Schultz added preliminary hearings can create disadvantages for the defense because witness testimony can serve as trial evidence if the witness does not appear in trial.
After the meeting, Burke said the decision will not pose any problems for Stanley's case; he also apologized to the court for any time inconvenience.
