I am shocked that Titus met in chambers before the hearing to discuss publicity. All he accomplished was letting some members of the press claim he took the defense attorneys to task about pre-trial publicity. Where did you read or hear that? I missed that nugget of information. I thought Titus was shooting from the hip (a prepared hip in that the order was already prepared in his sui sponte action) when he raised the issue of pretrial publicity. I still want to know how he can impose the rules of professional conduct on non-attorneys! And if Titus wanted to shut down all of the out-of-court communications, why didn't he just impose a gag order? Why reduce a rule to an order? All of the attorneys were already obligated to follow Rule 3.6.
Mad-Margret: Where did you read or hear that?
After seeing other posters allude to this, I asked this question last night to our Mike Nifong. He sent me sent me this N&O link:
N&O
He pointed out the quotation below from the middle of the article:
N&O: Before court began, Titus held a closed-door meeting with Nifong and the handful of lawyers on the defense side, in which they apparently discussed publicity.
Now maybe I am wrong and closed door was not in chambers but in the court room with the public shut out?
And I agree with your puzzlement about Titus reducing the ehtics rule to an order and thinking he can apply them to non-attorneys. That is why I said I wonder if under dumb in the dictionary we might see a picture of a Durham judge.