Pre-school Child Abuse Case Change of Venue Motion Taken Under Advisement, Tentative Trial Dates Set for Early January

During the morning docket of Thursday, July 27, Warren County Circuit Court Judge Daryl L. Funk took a defense motion for a change of venue in the pending trial of former Warren County Hilda J. Barbour preschool teacher Kayla Ann Bennett under advisement. Defense counsel Thomas Plofchan argued that a virtual firestorm of social media comments asserting Bennett’s guilt of physical abuse of what grand jury indictments appear to indicate were two of her students, and media coverage of that social media uproar, as well as the Warren County School Board’s presumptive dismissal of Bennett without her having been proven or found guilty in a court of law, made the likelihood of finding an impartial jury here virtually impossible.

Commonwealth’s Attorney John Bell countered that now was not the time for such a judgment to be made by the court. That time would be once attempts were made to seat a jury when hearing directly from the jury pool on their level of exposure to presumptions of the defendant’s guilt and the influence on them of that exposure. Bell referenced a Charlottesville jury trial case where a change of venue was denied despite an extraordinary amount of pre-trial publicity, including at the national level and by at least one unnamed presidential candidate.

The court’s “under advisement” ruling appears to side with the Commonwealth’s wait-and-see argument while not ruling out the possibility of granting the change of venue request once jury selection begins. Later in Thursday’s hearing, potential trial dates of January 2nd through January 5th were set after hearing prosecution and defense estimates on the length of a trial. The defense indicated it would be requesting a jury trial, with jury selection likely adding the better part of a day to the trial process. Bennett’s attorney also told the court his client would not be waiving her right to a speedy trial.

As reported in covering the June 23rd first phase of this pretrial hearing, Bennett was charged with two felony counts of Cruelty/Injure a Child and four misdemeanor charges of Assault and Battery.

Will the jury trial of former HJB preschool teacher Kayla Bennett be held in the Warren County Courthouse? The defense claims negative pre-trial publicity and School Board actions make impartial jury selection improbable here. Judge Funk has taken the defense motion for a change of venue under advisement. – Royal Examiner File Photo

Also on Thursday, after hearing more defense and prosecution arguments on the nature of the indictments filed against Bennett related to allegations of physical abuse of what is believed to be two of her students, Judge Funk denied a defense motion for dismissal of the six charges filed. However, the court granted a defense motion for filing a Bill of Particulars elaborating more detail on the charges as described in the grand jury indictments; and accepted the defense filing of six not-guilty pleas to the charges. The prosecution was given two weeks to file the Bill of Particulars and the defense an additional two weeks to respond to that filing.

Bennett remains free on an own-recognizance bond. The alleged offenses are cited as occurring “between January 4 through May 5” of this year. Public School system administrators said they were made aware of the allegations on May 4. The grand jury returned the indictments on June 12. Defense attorney Plofchan pointed to the vagueness of the time frame of the charges as preventing the defense from utilizing the “alibi” defense, where the defendant can state they were not present at the time and place of a crime they are alleged to have committed. The defense hopes the prosecution’s Bill of Particulars filing will add some specificity to those time-frame issues. However, Commonwealth’s Attorney Bell noted that with preschool-aged children being the source of the complaint, some vagaries in detail were to be expected.

Citing the age of his client’s former students as 3 to 4 years old, defense counsel Plofchan may have hinted at one possible defense claim at trial. Illustrating a point in reaction to sections of the Assault and Battery code as “rude and unwanted touching,” the defense attorney noted that a teacher’s grabbing and jerking a youngster’s arm to prevent it from being pinned by a door being slammed shut by another student may have been interpreted by the student as “rude or unwanted touching” without realizing the context of the teacher’s intervention to prevent an injury.

Another pre-trial hearing date for continued arguments was set for August 21, on the 9 a.m. docket.