Lawyer seeking to limit pretrial information in Lovette case

DURHAM -- The lawyer representing the teen charged with slaying a Duke University graduate student wants tight controls on who gets details of the police investigation.

Karen Bethea-Shields, representing Laurence Alvin Lovette, 17, is worried that too much information is leaking out about the case, including particulars that could threaten her client's right to a fair trial.

"There has been continuous, and pervasive pretrial publicity concerning this case which has the unavoidable effect of denying this defendant of his constitutional rights to a fair and impartial jury trial, free from outside influences," Bethea-Shields wrote in a motion seeking a protective order for Lovette.

Lovette is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Abhijit Mahato, a Duke student found dead in his off-campus apartment in January, shot between the eyes with a gun held against a pillow.

Lovette also is accused of killing Eve Carson, the UNC-Chapel Hill student body president, who was found shot to death in Chapel Hill in early March.

The protective order and other issues could arise today during a hearing scheduled in Durham County Superior Court.

In an affidavit seeking the protective order, Bethea-Shields wrote that a lead investigator in the Mahato homicide case divulged information in the Durham County courthouse in the presence of a reporter.

During Lovette's first court appearance in the Mahato case, District Court Judge Craig B. Brown stood up while Lovette was present and urged state leaders to pass new laws to fight gang activity.

Authorities have not said whether Lovette was a member of a gang. Chapel Hill police say a bank security photograph shows him wearing a vintage Houston Astros ball cap, which could be a gang symbol.

In her motion for a protective order, Bethea-Shields also complained that court, city and county officials had divulged information about a criminal record that Lovette had amassed before his 16th birthday, information that typically is not public.

"This continuous adverse publicity has resulted in a growing prejudice against the defendant before any evidence is presented in court," the motion says. "This information includes details of his background, including information that may not be introduced at a jury trial."