11:25 AM EDT on Friday, May 5, 2006

BY PAUL EDWARD PARKER
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- A Superior Court judge will hold a hearing this morning to decide whether to make public dozens of letters the court has received as Daniel M. Biechele is about to be sentenced in the Station nightclub fire case.

On Tuesday, The Providence Journal requested that Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. make public "victim impact statements," letters to the judge from relatives of the 100 people who died in the February 2003 West Warwick nightclub fire.

On Wednesday, Darigan rejected the request.

Yesterday, the newspaper expanded its request to include all letters the judge has received regarding Biechele's sentencing, and it requested a hearing.

In rejecting The Journal's request, Darigan commented through a spokesman, "These are bereaved persons whose personal expressions of grief are not to be picked over and aggrandized without their permission." The judge does not mind if individuals want to share the letters they wrote to the court, according to courts spokesman Craig N. Berke.

The judge said the impact statements are considered part of a "presentence report" in the case. State law requires that presentence reports be kept confidential.

As part of the presentence report, the impact statements are not considered public records, the judge said, according to Berke. "The statements are highly personal and often emotional, and are meant only to assist the court in making a determination for sentence."

Also at issue are letters written by people other than relatives of those who died, including letters from the public and from people supporting Biechele, the former Great White tour manager. The court has received about 80 letters from Biechele's supporters, according to a memorandum his lawyer filed in court yesterday. It is unknown how many letters,if any, about the case have come from the public.

Relatives of roughly two-thirds of the 100 people who died have provided information to the court, though an exact number of how many wrote to the court was not available yesterday. Some of those people will speak in court Monday and Tuesday as part of Biechele's sentencing hearing which is expected to end Wednesday afternoon.

Jane E. Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said it does not make sense that some of the comments from relatives will be public, while others will be secret.

"That's a recipe for creating distrust in the system," she said. "We start from the presumption that the criminal justice system is supposed to be as transparent as possible. Secrecy leads to suspicion. To fully understand the sentencing, the public should have as much information as possible."

pparker@projo.com / (401) 277-7360