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Lawyer in Baylor slaying case slams newspaper over jailhouse interview
(CNN) -- The attorney for a college athlete accused in the murder of a teammate said Thursday he is protesting a newspaper story based on a jailhouse interview, saying the reporter misrepresented herself. Lawyer Grady Irvin said Shani George, a 20-year-old student intern in the Washington bureau of the Dallas Morning News, interviewed Carlton Dotson at the Kent County Jail in Chestertown, Maryland, Wednesday night after identifying herself as a member of a "prayer group." The newspaper's editors defended the intern and challenged the attorney's description of the circumstances surrounding the interview. George, interviewed Thursday by CNN's Bill Hemmer, said she did identify herself as a reporter, but acknowledged she did not take notes or record her 10-minute question-and-answer session with Dotson. "It was just (a) one-on-one conversation," George said. "There was a partition glass and we spoke via telephone." Dotson was arrested July 21 in Chestertown, Maryland, and charged with murder in Patrick Dennehy's slaying. Dennehy, 21, had been last seen around June 12. His body was found Friday and his head was discovered separately Sunday. A forensics laboratory confirmed last weekend that the remains belonged to the missing basketball player, ending a six-and-a-half week search that attracted national attention. George's report suggested Dotson -- a Maryland resident who became friends with Dennehy during their time playing together at the Baptist-run university in Waco, Texas -- claimed to have acted in self-defense in the shooting. But Irvin, who was not present during the interview and did not know about it until afterwards, said George misrepresented herself, telling his client that she was praying for him, and mentioned the Morning News only once, referring to a friend who works there. In the article, for which she received a byline, George wrote that Dotson told her that Dennehy had somehow betrayed him and that he felt mortally threatened. "If someone points a gun at you and shoots and it doesn't go off, what would you do?" she quoted him as saying. "If someone is pointing a gun at you and they start putting more bullets into the gun, what would you do?" George wrote that she asked what Dotson had done, and the inmate "laughed and did not answer." As the interview ended, she said he told her, "I'm really not a bad person. Some things happen that aren't in your control." Irvin would not comment on what Dotson reportedly told the newspaper. Absent notes and a recording, he said, he has questions about what was reported. Editors defend effort to get interviewTwo editors at the paper defended the intern, saying she made it clear to Dotson that he was talking to a newspaper representative. George Rodrigue, vice president for the Washington, D.C., bureau of Belo Corp., which owns the newspaper -- said he stands behind the accuracy of the quotes attributed to Dotson, even though he acknowledged the George Washington University student did not record the interview or take notes during the meeting. Jail rules prohibit the use of electronic recording equipment, he said, adding that he did not know whether George would have been allowed to take notes. But, he said, she did not attempt to take notes because of tight time limits imposed by the jail and because of constraints imposed by holding a phone during the conversation. "I think she was trying to be conscientious and also trying to focus on what the guy was saying," Rodrigue said. Lennox Samuels, deputy managing editor for the newspaper, said the decision to send an intern to conduct a jailhouse interview was approved after considerable conversation between editors. "We had another reporter try [to obtain an interview] first and it was a matter of: this reporter is getting nowhere, let's try someone else." The lack of notes or a recording device had little impact on the final story, he said. "I think the interview was so short and so memorable and the reporter reacted so quickly that we're comfortable with the contents of that conversation." Immediately after the interview -- carried out by telephone separated from Dotson by a glass wall with no guards in the room -- George called her editor in Dallas and recited the quotes that appeared later in Thursday editions of the newspaper, Rodrigue said. "I would say there were notes taken, but by an editor in Dallas, over the telephone," he said. Rodrique said the intern had sought the interview by showing up at the jail during regular visiting hours, "just like any citizen can do," and that Dotson agreed to meet with her. Visiting hours occur on Wednesdays and Sundays, and George will likely get tapped for a return visit, Rodrigue said. "He seemed to be delighted to have a chance to tell his side of the story, and invited her back again. It's entirely likely she'll go back again." CNN Correspondent Ed Lavandera and CNN.com Law Editor Kevin Drew contributed to this story.
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