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Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Ind. Courts - Impact of Evansville paper's stories on Warrick County public records

Monday and Tuesday of this week, the Evansville Courier& Press published reporter Bryan Corbin's two-part series on Warrick County court records.

Today there are results, reported in two stories today by reporter Corbin, plus a C&P editorial.

"Warrick alters court filings: Corne says change will make records more accessible, protect confidentiality" is the headline to this story. Some quotes:

After two high-profile criminal cases where public records were not promptly released, Warrick County's [Prosecutor Todd Corne] said he is changing the way the court documents are filed.

Starting this week, when the Warrick County prosecutor's office brings criminal charges, it will file two versions of the probable-cause affidavit -the document that provides legal basis for an arrest. One version, on green paper, will contain any confidential information, such as Social Security numbers or juvenile victims' names, and will not be seen by the public. The other version, on white paper, will be available to the public at the court office, but the confidential information will be marked out or "redacted."

Interestingly, Prosecutor Corne appears to be blaming the media for not asking for the change earlier:
Corne is changing the way his office files such paperwork after news organizations expressed concern that the Warrick County courts were not releasing probable-cause affidavits, which are public records.

A new legal requirement imposed by the Indiana Supreme Court, known as Administrative Rule 9, requires prosecutors to delete confidential information from the public versions of probable-cause affidavits.

Corne said that when Rule 9 took effect in January 2005, his office continued to file affidavits as it always had - without providing separate, public versions. He said he had anticipated there would be a need to change that method.

"We thought it would occur in the first month or so, that we would be contacted by the media," Corne said.

But Corne didn't receive any media requests for affidavits until two high-profile cases of the last two weeks, he said.

"The fact that it has taken a year and a half, there was not any desire to not make the information public or hinder the media," the prosecutor said. "We've been waiting for someone to contact us to see . . . how to respond to it."

More from the story:
In a related development, the unusual format of Warrick County's probable-cause affidavits is being changed, Corne said. They will start to resemble those filed in Vanderburgh and other counties.

Rather than a written summary of the facts of the case, probable cause affidavits in Warrick County contained handwritten statements from witnesses, supplemental reports, photographs and other investigatory records.

Providing the judge a stack of documents worked well until recently, Corne said, because the legal process of "discovery" - sharing all evidence with the defense - was achieved at the outset.

"When Rule 9 came into effect, it altered the landscape," Corne said, since all those documents now had to be screened for confidential information before they could be made public.

The prosecutor said his changes will make public records accessible while still keeping personal information confidential under Rule 9.

The second story today by reporter Corbin is based on the contents of the filings in the child porn case, denial of access to which had occasioned the public records request. A quote:
Warrick County prosecutors formally charged Kilgore on April 10, almost a year after the alleged incident in April 2005. But the probable-cause affidavit - a public record spelling out the allegations - was not made public until Tuesday. The Evansville Courier & Press had filed a Freedom of Information Act request on May 19.
Some quotes from today's Evansville Courier& Press editorial:
The Warrick County justice system has been caught off guard, apparently snoozing away long after other Indiana counties had modernized the way they make information about alleged crimes available to the public.

A state rule that went into effect in January 2005 prohibits the release of some personal information, such as Social Security numbers. While other Indiana counties were preparing to modify their procedures for releasing probable-cause affidavits by that deadline, Warrick County officials, apparently, were not. And for more than a year, it did not seem to matter. That may be a backhanded compliment to Warrick County and its small number of serious crimes that for so many months, no requests from the public were submitted.

But that all changed earlier this month when the Evansville Courier & Press and an Evansville television station each asked to see probable-cause affidavits in separate criminal cases. The requests caught Warrick County ill- prepared to provide the information in a timely manner. As Courier & Press staff writer Bryan Corbin reported in a two-part series on Monday and Tuesday, the newspaper filed a request two weeks ago to see information about the specifics of the case involving Shawn Kil-gore, a computer network administrator from Boonville who was arrested on child-pornography charges. That information was provided Tuesday.

Simply stated, this is a public- access issue. Under Indiana law, government offices are required to make certain documents available to the public. If the government drags its feet in handing over such information, it is, at the least, a violation of the spirit of that law. In the case requested by the Courier & Press, it appears to be not a matter of intentional delay but of benign neglect.

Warrick officials said they were slowed by Administrative Rule 9 and its requirement to keep personal information out of the record made available to the public. But other counties haven't been slowed to a snail's pace; instead, they prepared two probable-cause affidavits - one for the public, without the information; and another for the court record that does include the information.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 31, 2006 07:26 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts