Appellate court judges say a Bellevue, Washington man didn’t need to be there when a judge reviewed video and audio recordings used as evidence against him in an attempted murder case. Fifty-four year old Eric Bartels is serving a 14-year prison sentence for kidnapping and trying to kill his girlfriend in 2018. She screamed for help and got away from Bartels at a Morris gas station.
He claimed Grundy County Judge Lance Peterson violated his right to participate in his defense during his trial a year later. But Bartels’s lawyer suggested the judge do that and even provided his own laptop computer for it.
Appellate judges Mary K. O’Brien and John Hauptman ruled that when the judge was looking over the evidence during the trial, Bartels’s presence wouldn’t have made a difference. Appellate Judge Mary McDade didn’t completely agree with the other judges, but went along with their decision. She wonders if things could lead to a defendant not being allowed to be there at important parts of his case.