Christina's Story: Newspaper Articles

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Christina's Story - Newspaper Articles

The following links take you to various articles in Christina's story as it appeared in the South Florida media.

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*In Loving Memory Of* Christina Diane Holt May 23, 1987 - September 16, 1994 "Beautiful Child who has found love from the angels...RIP..."	(Not her actual headstone)
These pages contain all of the articles from the Palm Beach Post and The Sun-Sentinel throughout the years.

Doctor: No View On Zile's Intent (11/7/96)
Former Examiner Sticks To Homicide Ruling In Zile Case (11/7/96)
Medical Examiner: Girl, 7, Suffocated (11/7/96)
Prosecutor's Air Zile's Letters, Rest Murder Case (11/8/96)
State Rests Against John Zile (11/8/96)
Zile May Testify As Defense Presents Case in Murder Trial (11/8/96)
Right Decision on Zile (11/9/96)
Zile Defense Disputes Accuracy of Blood-Detecting Chemical (11/9/96)
No Testimony From Zile -- For Now (11/9/96)
Judge Had No Choice But To Jail Zile Reporter (11/12/96)

DOCTOR: NO VIEW ON ZILE'S INTENT
The Palm Beach Post
November 7, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The doctor who autopsied Christina Holt said Wednesday he would never testify in court about whether he believes the girl died accidentally "because intent is a jury question."

Dr. James Benz, who was Palm Beach County's Medical Examiner when the 7-year-old girl's body was unearthed in Tequesta in October 1994, told attorneys but not jurors at the murder trial of John Zile that it's possible that in casual conversation he has described Christina's death as unintentional.
"I could have said that," Benz, now a semi-retired consultant, said from the witness stand with Zile's jurors outside the courtroom. "What would I testify to? That it's a jury question."

Zile's attorneys had hoped Benz would tell jurors he believes Zile never meant to kill Christina, Zile's stepdaughter. But Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger Colton barred that possibility, agreeing with prosecutors that expert witnesses may not offer an opinion on a defendant's intent or state of mind except when the defendant claims insanity.

Jurors did hear the results of Benz's autopsy - that Christina died of asphyxia, or a loss of oxygen to vital tissues, and that the manner of her death was homicide, meaning only that she was killed by a human being.

Benz also said he found bruises on Christina's face and buttocks as well as evidence she had breathed food into her lungs.

Zile, 34, is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the case. He admits Christina died while he was slapping and spanking her for misbehaving, and he admits covering her mouth when she began to cry. But Zile says Christina died more directly from the effects of a seizure.

Prosecution witnesses have said Christina was never diagnosed with a seizure disorder.

This is Zile's second trial. His first trial in West Palm Beach ended in a mistrial when one juror refused to convict Zile of first-degree murder. The trial was then moved because of the publicity about it in Palm Beach County.

Prosecutors Scott Cupp and Jill Estey expect to rest their case today. Defense attorneys Craig Wilson and Ed O'Hara will open their case Friday.

Jurors also heard testimony Wednesday from Chad Brannon, a friend of Zile's in 1994, who said he saw Zile punish Christina for repeatedly changing details of her claim she had been sexually abused before moving in with the Ziles in June 1994.

Zile gave his stepdaughter "about three whacks on the butt with a belt ... just hard enough to sting," and dropped the girl feet-first on a bed, Brannon recalled.

Brannon, who was clearly angry at having to testify again in the case, also said Zile was worried he would be blamed for the sexual abuse Christina claimed to have suffered.

And Brannon said he once caught Christina fondling Zile's youngest son, then 3. It was that sort of behavior that largely prompted the punishment that led to the girl's death around midnight on Sept. 16, 1994, in the Ziles' Singer Island apartment, according to a statement Zile gave police.

Also Wednesday, Wilson requested a mistrial and a change of venue because of articles about the case published Wednesday in The Ledger in Lakeland and The Tampa Tribune. The Ledger polled Polk County residents about the case and published some of their comments, including those of a reader who said, "They should hang him (Zile) now and save the taxpayers a lot of money." Colton denied Wilson's request.

FORMER EXAMINER STICKS TO HOMICIDE RULING IN ZILE CASE
Sun-Sentinel
November 7, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Wilson John Zile's hopes that a coroner would support his claim that his stepdaughter's death was accidental evaporated on Wednesday when Dr. James Benz refused to budge from his original homicide ruling.

Benz told the jury that Christina Holt, 7, asphyxiated to death in September, 1994.

The doctor drew a diagram to show the jury the numerous bruises and discoloration he found, but volunteered that some of them could have occurred after death.

He did not find any damage to internal organs or broken bones and an autopsy would not be able to show whether Christina died from a seizure as Zile has claimed, Benz said.
But when prosecutor Scott Cupp asked Benz whether the death was a homicide, Zile's lead attorney shot up from his chair to object.

After the judge excused jurors from the room, Craig Wilson asked the judge for a chance to discredit Benz. He again asked for permission to present new witnesses who have said Benz told them the child was not intentionally killed.

Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Roger B. Colton stuck with hisearlier ruling. He said that the witnesses would not be allowed to testify because Zile's attorneys did not tell prosecutors about them soon enough. But, with the jury out of the room, he did allow the defense to question Benz about the conversations so that judges can review the matter if a conviction is appealed.

All the legal maneuvering caused a rare outburst from Zile.

"I'm so tired of this," Zile said before Wilson put out his hand to stop him from saying more.

Benz admitted that he had once told West Palm Beach lawyer Gregg Lerman that he did not think Zile intended to kill his stepdaughter. He confirmed the conversation took place sometime after Aug. 1, when he retired as Palm Beach County's chief medical examiner under pressure from police and prosecutors unhappy with his handling of two child homicide cases.

"That's what I said in casual conversation in a cigar store, but this lawyer should know that's not what I'm going to testify in a trial," Benz said. Benz said determining whether John Zile intended to kill his stepdaughter is an issue for jurors, not medical examiners.

Benz also confirmed he had a similar conversation about intent with Zile's second attorney, Ed O'Hara, but again insisted it was a casual chat.

Had Benz denied the conversations completely, the defense could have presented both Lerman and O'Hara to dispute the doctor's testimony. The prosecution also presented testimony from Zile's close friend Chad Brannon who said he saw Zile hit Christina with a belt.

Brannon, 24, of Palm Beach Gardens, said the child was lying that her biological father in Maryland sexually abused her, and Zile became frustrated.

"John said, `Can you believe the words coming out of her mouth?'" Brannon said.

Before the child's abduction was reported in October 1994, Brannon said he and Zile went barhopping in Fort Lauderdale and Zile asked to go to the Thunderbird Swap Shop west of Fort Lauderdale. That weekend, Pauline Zile reported the child was kidnapped from the women's restroom of the flea market.

Other witnesses on Wednesday included the child's grandmother, Judith Holt, of Poolesville, Md., who said she gave the Ziles $1,000 when she brought the child to be reunited with her mother.

Holt also testified that she brought Christina's videotapes and bicycle, which other state witnesses testified were sold or pawned.

Holt unexpectedly helped the defense when she said Pauline Zile told her she was epileptic while pregnant with Christina. The defense claims the child's death was caused by an undiagnosed seizure condition inherited from her mother.

The state is expected to rest after testimony today.

MEDICAL EXAMINER: GIRL, 7, SUFFOCATED
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 7, 1996
Author: Associated Press

The 7-year-old stepdaughter John Zile is accused of killing died from asphyxiation likely caused by injuries to her face and mouth, a medical examiner testified Wednesday.

James Benz was Palm Beach County medical examiner when he did the autopsy on Christina Holt after she was removed from an unmarked grave in October 1994.
By Zile's own account, she had been buried there since early September.

Zile is charged with first-degree murder in Christina's death. After she was killed and buried, Zile and his wife Pauline tried to hide the crime by concocting a story about her being abducted from a Fort Lauderdale flea market, prosecutors say.

Benz, who is no longer with Palm Beach County, said the child had at least three bruises on her face and more on her buttocks, legs and knuckles. Skin connecting her lip to her upper gum was torn, but she had no broken bones or internal injuries.

Benz also said there were food particles in her trachea. Zile claimed the child had vomited, couldn't breathe and went into a seizure.

Benz said there was no evidence she suffered from any natural diseases.

However, on cross examination, he said decomposition would make it too difficult to tell if she had had a seizure. Also, he added, determining a seizure after death can be difficult.

Out of earshot of the jury, Benz was asked about a conversation with a lawyer in a cigar store regarding the case. Benz reportedly had said he thought the child's death was unintentional.

On the stand, Benz said a question of whether it was intentional was the domain of the jury, not him.

While it might be something he would say in casual conversation at a cigar store, it's not what he would say from the witness stand, he said.

On Tuesday, the trial judge refused to grant Zile a third mistrial after his attorney's out-of-court comments that the defense expects a conviction.

Before testimony started, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger B. Colton separately interviewed the 12 jurors and two alternates on whether they have heard anything about the case since they were dismissed from the trial on Friday morning.

The jurors were brought into the courtroom one at a time, and each said no.

Zile said publicity about the remarks could damage his case, although he thought his attorney's comments were taken out of context.

PROSECUTORS AIR ZILE'S LETTERS, REST MURDER CASE
The Palm Beach Post
November 8, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Prosecutors rested their murder case against John Zile Thursday after showing jurors handwritten notes in which they say Zile acknowledges mistreating his stepdaughter in the weeks before she died.

One is a letter to Zile's parents; the other is, in part, a history of his difficult relationship with his stepdaughter, Christina Holt. Zile wrote both notes shortly before he and his wife tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide Oct. 26, 1994.
The couple realized by then that their story that Christina had disappeared from a Broward County swap shop was unraveling and that investigators believed the girl may have been abused at the Ziles' Singer Island apartment.

"We are guilty of some things at the apartment, but not as much as it seemed," Zile wrote in the letter to his parents. And later in the same letter: "We have never ever hurt Chad or Daniel (the Ziles' two sons)."

Such statements, prosecutors say, show that Zile singled out his stepdaughter for abuse.

The letter and chronology, which Zile titled "The Story of John and Pauline," were not introduced as evidence at Zile's first trial in West Palm Beach, which ended in a hung jury.

Circuit Judge Roger Colton allowed the notes into evidence Thursday over objections by attorneys for Zile, who is charged with first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse.

Defense attorney Ed O'Hara later that said the documents do not significantly damage Zile's defense because they show he tried to discipline the 7-year-old girl in nonphysical ways before resorting to spanking her and "flicking" his fingers on her lips, the punishments he was inflicting just before she died on Sept. 16, 1994.

Colton also ruled Thursday that jurors will also be allowed to consider other, less serious child abuse charges, a crucial ruling for the defense. If jurors decide Zile was committing a less serious form of child abuse when Christina died, they could logically opt not to convict him of first-degree felony murder, a death that occurs during certain felonies including aggravated child abuse but not the lesser abuse charges.

Also Thursday, defense attorneys introduced a letter from Christina's kindergarten teacher in Maryland describing her as an difficult behavioral problem.

But the last state witness to testify - Christina's second-grade teacher at Jupiter Farms Elementary School, Lydia Johnson - told jurors Christina was not a behavior problem until the last day of school she attended.

Struggling to hold back tears, Johnson recalled, "She kept getting up and coming up to me and hugging me."

STATE RESTS ITS CASE AGAINST JOHN ZILE
SUICIDE NOTES LIED ABOUT GIRL'S DEATH
Sun-Sentinel
November 8, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

The prosecution ended its case in John Zile's murder trial on Thursday with a weeping teacher who remembered Christina Holt's obsessive need to be hugged and Zile's suicide notes that lied about the girl's death.
During an Oct. 26, 1994, suicide attempt, Zile wrote a letter to his parents, Charles and Patricia Zile of Brookville, Md., that said the couple would rather die than lose their children. In it, John and Pauline Zile continued to insist that Christina had been kidnapped from the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop.

"She really did go to the Swap Shop with Pauline. We hope to God the police find her and return her to her loved ones," Zile wrote. "We are not the monsters we seem to be."

The Ziles tried to kill themselves at a Martin County orange grove after police found traces of blood in their Singer Island apartment and their child abduction hoax unraveled.

The Ziles' clumsy attempts at suicide failed because the garden hose used to draw exhaust fumes into their 1985 Cadillac El Dorado kept falling out, Zile told police.

During the drawn-out exercise, the Ziles had time to write four letters to family and friends and an eight-page essay.

The letter and essay, written in a spiral notebook, were not given to juries in the case against Pauline Zile or in John Zile's trial in May. Pauline Zile, 25, is serving a life sentence for her role in Christina's death. Zile is being tried a third time after his first two trials ended in mistrials.

The prosecution wanted this jury to see the letters to show that Zile lied even to his mother about the child's death and his claim that the girl's death was an accident is unbelievable.

Zile's attorneys say the writings back up Zile's police statement that he was overwhelmed with his stepdaughter's bad behavior, such as molesting her half-brother and lying. And his methods of punishment escalated to spankings only when more lenient measures such as being sent to her room failed.

Christina was Pauline Zile's child from a previous marriage and had been raised by her paternal family in Maryland. Christina moved to Florida to live with her mother and John Zile just three months before her death. Zile wrote that Christina suffered three epileptic seizures during her three-month reunion with her mother. Zile contends the child died because of an undiagnosed seizure disorder inherited from Pauline Zile, who is epileptic.

Zile wrote that the first time he spanked Christina was when he caught her molesting his youngest son, Chad, then 3, in a closet after bedtime. He struck her five times with his hand.

The child got into trouble in school and hid the teacher's note and made up stories of sexual abuse by her Maryland relatives, Zile wrote.

"Christina started lying about anything and everything," he said. Lydia Johnson, Christina's second-grade teacher at Jupiter Farms Elementary School, testified she did not remember writing any notes home.

She had a problem with Christina, who was the smallest in the class, only a few days before the girl stopped coming to school, Johnson said.

"She kept getting up a lot and hugging me," the teacher said, openly crying.

The defense case begins today.

ZILE MIGHT TESTIFY AS DEFENSE PRESENTS CASE IN MURDER TRIAL
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 8, 1996
Author: Associated Press

The state rested its murder case Thursday against a man accused of beating his 7-year-old stepdaughter to death and then faking her abduction.

John Zile's defense lawyers were expected to start calling witnesses today. They've indicated Zile, accused of first-degree murder, may testify on his own behalf.
Zile is accused of beating second-grader Christina Holt to death in 1994. Prosecutors say that after burying her, he and his wife Pauline tried to hide the crime by concocting a story about her being abducted from a Fort Lauderdale flea market.

The second-grader's body eventually was discovered in a field near a Kmart in the Palm Beach County town of Tequesta.

Zile later told police she had a seizure and died after he hit her for soiling her pants. His wife was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison.

Zile's first trial in May ended in a mistrial after a Palm Beach County jury split 11-1 for a first-degree murder conviction. The second trial was moved to Polk County because of excessive publicity in South Florida.

RIGHT DECISION ON ZILE
The Palm Beach Post
November 9, 1996

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger Colton, presiding over John Zile's third trial on first-degree murder charges, is trying to keep this one on track. He's a patient man, and it's a good thing.

Judge Colton dismissed 25 prospective jurors from the first trial when one called Zile "a sleaze" in front of the others. When the testimony was over, one juror said she couldn't convict Zile of murdering his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Christina Holt, and risk sending Zile to the electric chair. Judge Colton had to declare a mistrial.
The second trial was moved to Polk County because of defense concerns about finding an impartial jury in Palm Beach County. The court clerk then made comments to potential jurors that could have tainted them, so Judge Colton declared a mistrial again.

Last week, Mr. Colton ran into another problem. A TV camera operator said that Craig Wilson, one of Zile's attorneys, had told her he believed his client would be convicted and that his statement to police shows "he did it." Monday, Zile said his trial had been compromised by the comments and asked that his lawyer be removed.

Judge Colton refused. Mr. Wilson has been representing Zile well, the judge said. Whatever comments the lawyer might have made to the TV camera operator - and Mr. Wilson did not confirm that he even made them - were said outside the presence of the jury. Therefore, Judge Colton said, they caused no harm.

Even Zile acknowledged in court that, with this exception, he had been completely satisfied with the work done by his attorneys. "They have gone above and beyond their responsibilities to me as their client," he told Judge Colton, "and I can state as fact that it's not easy being my attorneys."

No kidding.

Zile and his wife, Pauline - who was convicted last year of first-degree murder for her part in the 1994 killing - let Christina's body rot in their Singer Island apartment for days. They told police she had been kidnapped from a Broward County flea market. Then, John Zile said, he buried the body. Days later, he told police he had beaten Christina and that she had suffered a seizure after the beating and died.

Courts should not rush to judgment, but they shouldn't do a slow crawl, either. Judge Colton ruled correctly. There was no need to restart the justice system for John Zile again.

ZILE DEFENSE DISPUTES ACCURACY OF BLOOD-DETECTING CHEMICAL
The Palm Beach Post
November 9, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The chemical police used at John Zile's apartment to detect what they thought might be human blood also reacts to insect blood, animal blood and a variety of other substances, according to testimony Friday at John Zile's murder trial.

"I'm aware that Luminol will react to any type of blood," Stuart James, a consultant in forensic science and an expert in blood stain interpretation, testified at Zile's murder trial.
Luminol reacts to so many things that aren't human blood, in fact, that those reactions "may even overshadow what you're really looking for," James said.

Zile's attorneys hope the testimony undercuts prosecution evidence that police, using Luminol, found a large number of what they believed were bloodstains inside Zile's Singer Island apartment in October 1994.

At the time, John and Pauline Zile were claiming that Christina Holt, Pauline Zile's daughter and John Zile's stepdaughter, had disappeared from a Broward County swap shop. In fact, the girl had died more than a month earlier at the apartment sometime around midnight on Sept. 16, 1994.

Zile, 34, is charged with murder and aggravated child abuse. James was the first witness to testify for the defense at Zile's second trial, which was moved to Bartow because of publicity in Palm Beach County. The first trial ended with a hung jury.

Copper, bleach products, paints containing metallic elements and even plant enzymes have been reported to produce a reaction from Luminol, James said.

Another witness, Steve Stogiannis, who owns the Sea Nymph apartments where the Ziles lived, testified that "a lot of people" lived in the apartment before the Ziles, further eroding the significance of the invisible blood evidence police said they found on furniture, carpet and walls.

Luminol, which is applied in the dark, reacts with a green-blue glow to an enzyme found in hemoglobin. The enzyme is almost impossible to erase by cleaning.

Luminol is so sensitive it can detect one drop of blood diluted in 999,999 drops of water, police said. In the O.J. Simpson case, it detected blood in his Bronco.

Also Friday, Zile's attorneys said they want to subpoena prosecutor Mary Ann Duggan to testify about shifts in prosecution strategy between the trial of Zile and that of Pauline Zile, who was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

The defense says prosecutors improperly realigned a key witness' testimony so that the testimony now supports a different charge against John Zile than it did in the case against his wife.

NO TESTIMONY FROM ZILE - FOR NOW
Sun-Sentinel
November 9, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

The defense in John Zile's murder trial opened its case with two witnesses on Friday - neither of them Zile.

Zile was among the first defense witnesses at his first trial in May.
On Friday, Zile's attorneys, Craig Wilson and Ed O'Hara, declined comment on whether Zile will testify this time about the night of Sept. 16, 1994, when his stepdaughter, Christina Holt, 7, went into convulsions and choked to death while he was disciplining her.

Zile is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

What the jury has seen so far of Zile is a small, trim man dressed in pastel Oxford shirts who spends much of his time taking notes, consulting his own set of law books and peppering his attorneys with questions for wit-nes-ses.

If Zile doesn't testify, other witnesses will be needed to evoke the more sympathetic image of Zile as a short-order cook with a ninth-grade education, a man overwhelmed by family responsibilities - a pregnant, unemployed wife and three children all crowded into a furnished one-bedroom apartment.

The Ziles gave their newborn son up for adoption to make room for Christina, Pauline Zile's daughter from her first marriage, Zile has said.

But the pitfalls of putting Zile on the stand were demonstrated in his first trial, which ended with a deadlocked jury.

Some of those jurors said Zile showed little remorse for his stepdaughter's death, despite his tears on the witness stand. They drew comparisons between his often emotional testimony to the taciturn way he spoke to police in an Oct. 28, 1994, tape recording.

They listened to the police tape twice, the second time during deliberations, to pick out inconsistencies with his testimony.

If Zile testifies this time, prosecutors can point to not only conflicts with his police statement, but to his testimony at the first trial.

Zile's attorneys started their case on Friday with a blood-splatter expert, who said blood stains found on the girl's blue jeans appeared to be drips from a nosebleed rather than from a beating.

The expert also testified that a large brownish stain found on Christina's mattress could have been vomit, or the contents of her stomach expelled after death. Zile told police he put Christina to bed after she suffocated from a seizure, hoping she would somehow wake up in the morning.

A second witness, the Ziles' landlord, testified they were hardworking people who gave him few problems, except the one time a neighbor complained about their loudness.

Landlord Steve Stogiannis' testimony conflicted with the time line established by neighbor Dayle Ackerman, who testified for the prosecution that she complained in September 1994 of hearing a child's screams, silence and then a man wailing, "Oh, my God, what have I done," from Zile's apartment.

Stogiannis testified on Friday he got the complaint in August 1994, and he went back to the Ziles' apartment sometime later to fix a broken air conditioner.

"I see all the children, the two boys and the girl, Christina," he testified. "The little kids tried to help. They gave me my screw-driver."

Courts are closed on Monday for Veterans Day. The trial resumes on Tuesday.

JUDGE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO JAIL ZILE REPORTER
The Palm Beach Post
November 12, 1996
Author: DOUGLAS DUNCAN

In a recent editorial, "Save the prosecutions for crooks, not press," you accuse Palm Beach County's State Attorney Barry Krischer of going too far in prosecuting the reporter who refused to honor a subpoena and give testimony in the high-profile John Zile murder case.

You suggest that Mr. Krischer and Judge Roger Colton, the trial judge who found The Miami Herald's David Kidwell in contempt and sentenced him to jail, should both reread the First Amendment to the Constitution.
But in advancing your position, you failed to inform your readers that, pursuant to decisions of the Florida Supreme Court and Florida's District Courts of Appeal, Mr. Krischer and Judge Colton were enforcing Florida law, which they both were elected to do.

According to your editorial, in 1994, Mr. Kidwell went to the Palm Beach County jail and interviewed John Zile, who had been charged in the death of his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Christina Holt. During the interview, Zile made certain statements about his role in Christina's death. Subsequently, the reporter wrote an article about his interview with Zile, and quoted from Zile wherein he outlined his role in the death of his stepdaughter.

In preparation for Zile's retrial, the state attorney's office subpoenaed Mr. Kidwell, seeking to compel his appearance at trial, and thereby introduced Zile's statements into evidence. The reporter moved to quash the subpoena, which Judge Colton denied.

Judge Colton, like all Palm Beach County judges, is legally obligated to follow the decisions of both the Florida Supreme Court and the Fourth District Court of Appeal, the immediate appellate court in and for Palm Beach County.

The Fourth District had already been called upon to decide a reporter's First Amendment privilege under the same factual circumstances as involved in the Zile case. Specifically, in Gold Coast Publications Inc. vs. State, a 1996 case, a newspaper reporter interviewed a defendant charged with second-degree murder. Following that, an article was published with several direct quotes from the defendant.

After publication, the Broward County State Attorney's Office issued a subpoena for the reporter, compelling his appearance to give a statement. The reporter filed a motion to quash the subpoena, citing the First Amendment "qualified reporter privilege." The trial judge denied the motion to quash, and the Fourth District upheld the trial court's decision.

In its ruling, the Fourth District noted that Florida courts have recognized a reporter's privilege to prevent compelled disclosure of the identity of confidential sources as well as information acquired from confidential sources. But the Fourth District held that because "the source of the information" was identified in the article as being the defendant himself, there was no confidentiality involved, and hence no privilege applied.

Judge Colton was legally required to follow the binding precedent of the Fourth District Court of Appeal; he had no legal choice but to deny the reporter's motion to quash the subpoena. Mr. Krischer also acted properly in seeking the reporter's testimony.

Without acknowledging the current law of Florida regarding the privilege of a reporter under the factual circumstances presented, your editorial unfairly portrays Judge Colton and State Attorney Krischer as being constitutionally ignorant.

You also criticized Mr. Krischer for attempting to compel the reporter's testimony because in Zile's first trial a similar attempt was not made. You conclude that the reporter's testimony "isn't necessary now to make the state's case." How presumptuous! Does anyone for one moment believe that if the prosecutors in the O.J. Simpson murder case had received a mistrial, that during the preparation for the retrial they would not have reconsidered certain evidence that they didn't use in the fi rst trial? Every lawyer, whether a prosecutor or defense attorney, reevaluates his or her strategy and available evidence after a mistrial.

I respect the very important role that the press plays in our society. Perhaps some federal court will decide that the Florida Supreme Court and Florida District Courts of Appeal were mistaken in their interpretation of a newspaper reporter's First Amendment privilege under the facts involved in this instance.

But until and unless that happens, we expect our judges and prosecutors to follow the existing law. Mr. Krischer and Judge Colton shouldn't be unfairly attacked for applying and enforcing it.

Douglas Duncan is a partner in the West Palm Beach law firm of Roth and Duncan.