« Ind. Decisions - Court grants transfer in two cases | Main | Ind. Courts - Hamilton County spent $1 million on pauper attorneys »

Friday, December 07, 2007

Ind. Decisions - More on: Marion County juvenile court orders release of the juvenile court file and the much larger DCS case file in TaJanay Bailey case

Updating this entry from yesterday, the Indianapolis Star's Jon Murray reported last evening that:

A Marion County juvenile court judge this afternoon released hundreds of pages from the Department of Child Services case file on TaJanay Bailey. * * *

DCS lawyers argued in favor of releasing the records, and Judge Marilyn Moores agreed Friday over opposition from Charity Bailey’s attorneys. She reviewed the documents this week to make redactions of information protected by privacy laws before releasing them to the media today.

This morning a side-bar to this Star story by Tim Evans and Jon Murray gives more details on the records release:
STAR'S REQUEST BEGAN PROCESS OF FILE'S RELEASE

Thursday's release of about 1,500 pages from the state Department of Child Services case file on TaJanay Bailey was unprecedented in its quickness.

The 3-year-old girl died Nov. 27 after she had been physically abused, prosecutors say. In previous cases in which a child died while under DCS guardianship, it has taken months or longer to gain access to the confidential case file.

But after The Indianapolis Star requested the release of DCS and Marion County juvenile court records last week, DCS officials also lobbied Judge Marilyn Moores to make them public.

Public defenders representing TaJanay's mother, Charity Bailey, objected to the release over concerns for privacy and the potential for harm in Bailey's criminal case.

In ordering the release Friday, Moores said transparency and government accountability drove her decision. The court immediately provided copies of its own record, and the judge spent much of this week redacting the much larger DCS file to comply with federal and state privacy laws.

The public defender's office was among those lining up for a copy of the case file Thursday at a FedEx Kinko's store. Ray Casanova, who is representing Bailey in the criminal case, said he still had worries.

"Our concern is about the ability of the story to be told through these records alone," he said. "The best place for this story to be told is in a courtroom."

-- Jon Murray

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 7, 2007 06:03 AM
Posted to Indiana Decisions