Man vs. the System: Inmate Fires Lawyers, Makes Own Case

In those two years, he’s fired several attorneys and in March decided to represent himself against accusations that he engaged in sexual activity with a teenage girl. As his own defender, he has filed dozens of motions and filed a suit against Twin Falls County claiming his rights have been violated. Since March, he terminated his co-counsel who was appointed to help him through the legal process.

“Every attorney I’ve ran into, they’re really working for a person to take a deal,” Brackett said in a phone interview from the Twin Falls County Jail Thursday. “If you look at the Idaho Rules of Professional Conduct, any attorney is supposed to represent you with zeal. I haven’t seen that here.”

It’s a highly unusual situation, said Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs. Loebs said he couldn’t comment about this case until the trial is over.

Brackett’s trial begins today. The charges stem from January 2011, when he was accused of engaging in sexual activity with a 16-year-old Wendell girl at his Twin Falls home on multiple dates in December 2010 and January 2011. He also allegedly detained the girl at his home during a Jan. 9, 2011 argument.

Over the past 22 months the charges against him have varied. He is currently facing eight counts of using a child in or possessing sexually exploitative material and seven counts of sexual battery committed by lewd or lascivious acts on a minor child aged 16 or 17. One count of sexual battery by committing lewd or lascivious acts on a minor aged 16 or 17 was dropped in October 2011.

If convicted, each sexual battery count is punishable by up to 25 years in prison and each child pornography count carries up to 10 years in prison.

Access to Information

Since he’s chosen to represent himself, Brackett has petitioned for access to phones, computers, the Internet and law books.

Twin Falls County Jail Administrator Capt. Doug Hughes said an inmate decides to represent him or herself every few years and jail staff do the best they can to accommodate those inmates.

“With Brackett, I think we’ve gone above and beyond what we need to,” he said.

Hughes said he believes Brackett’s co-counsel and the investigator he hired should be sufficient to help him navigate the legal system. Brackett was also allowed to review court rules and view evidence in an area of the jail, Hughes said.

“I don’t think there’s much else that can be afforded to someone who’s incarcerated,” he said.

For several months, Brackett was allowed use of a phone in the booking area of the jail while handcuffed to an area near the phone. Eventually, jail staff decided it was a security risk to have an inmate in the booking area of the jail. Now, Brackett must use a phone in his cellblock that uses an automated system.

Brackett was not charged for any calls from the booking area or the cellblock phone until earlier this month when his free phone privileges were taken away, Hughes said.

In a court hearing about his access to phone use on Oct. 10, Brackett described how he was not able to leave messages or navigate automated phone menus because of the inmate call system on the cellblock phone. Since Brackett has hired an investigator to help with his case, Brackett said jail staff told him to have the investigator make those calls.

Hughes testified at the hearing that the jail staff chose to stop allowing Brackett to access the booking area phone due to security issues in the booking area.

“Things transpire in booking that he doesn’t need to be aware of,” Hughes said.

Brackett was accused of abusing his free phone privileges by giving his assigned personal identification number away to other inmates so they could also have free calls.

At the Oct. 10 hearing Brackett explained he was asking other inmates to have their family members call the numbers he could not access from jail, like companies that use automated phone menus. In exchange, Brackett said he allowed other inmates to use his free phone time to speak to their own families.

“I can’t just ask somebody to do something for me,” Brackett said at the hearing. “This is jail, you don’t get anything for free.”

‘They’re going to ... make an example of me’

Brackett said other drawbacks to representing himself while incarcerated include not being able to gather all the witnesses he wanted and not being allowed a hard-cover Black’s Law Dictionary because hard-cover books are not allowed in the jail.

Brackett said he believes several entities within the county are working together to make his case more difficult for him to win.

“I think they’re going to try to make an example of me,” Brackett told the Times-News Thursday. “I’m to the point I know the truth in my heart, I know these things didn’t happen. I’m not a child molester and not a child pornographer.”

Brackett said the public should look him up on the Idaho Supreme Court Repository online to see for themselves what he’s gone through over the past months.

Brackett’s trial is scheduled to last through Friday this week and Brackett said at his pretrial hearing that he plans to call more than 20 witnesses, some of whom will overlap with witnesses called by prosecutors.

More than 100 motions

Much of what Brackett planned to use as part of his defense will be excluded from the trial after prosecutors made motions to exclude the court’s prior motions in the case, allegations the court violated Brackett’s rights, allegations about “bad acts” of the alleged victim and evidence of an alternative perpetrator in the case.

In a hearing discussing the motions, Brackett said he was left in a catch-22.

In Judge Richard Bevan’s written decision about the motions, he stated Brackett will not be allowed to reference the more than 100 motions Bevan has ruled on over the course of the case. Bevan states that according to Idaho law, the only relevant evidence is any that makes the existence of any fact in the case more or less likely. For the same reason, he will not be allowed to reference alleged violations of his rights in court.

Despite his limitations, Brackett said one of the pros to representing himself in court is the ability to see all the evidence he said he wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

“I’m not asking for a not guilty verdict; I’m asking for fairness across the board,” he said.