The ACLU of RI and three media organizations today submitted a supplemental “friend of the court” brief in federal court in support of a lawsuit filed by the Providence Journal seeking to obtain a copy of a jury form that was prepared in a high-profile murder case.
The brief, filed by ACLU volunteer attorneys Thomas W. Lyons and Rhiannon Huffman, is on behalf of the ACLU; the New England First Amendment Coalition; the R.I. Press Association; and Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns WJAR-TV. The brief argues that the form should be made available since it is a public record subject to Rhode Island’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA). The brief explains that the jury form “identifies by juror number which jurors sat on a jury before a particular judge in a particular courtroom on a particular day.”
The Journal lawsuit has argued that the newspaper should be entitled to the record as a matter of constitutional right, but last month U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe asked the parties to submit briefs indicating whether the matter could be resolved under APRA instead.
The friend of the court brief answers that question in the affirmative, stating that the form clearly meets the definition of a “public record” under APRA, and that no exemption in APRA is applicable. Instead, the brief argues there is a “substantial public interest” in learning more about “how the jury reached its verdict” in the highly-publicized trial, and the form could assist in that effort.
The suit was prompted by controversial orders issued in April by a Superior Court Administrator and Superior Court Judge Netti Vogel, respectively, that blocked release of the juror card and initially barred members of the public from contacting the jurors in the case. The ACLU and the media groups signing today’s brief had previously filed a brief supporting the Journal’s access to the records on constitutional grounds, along with its continued challenges to the temporary ban on contacting jurors.
ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown said today: “In the past few months alone, we have seen the Pawtucket police department deny the public access to reports of police misconduct; the Attorney General seek to charge exorbitant fees for access to records relating to its expenditure of Google settlement money; and state police initially refuse disclosing a list of personnel on injured-on-duty status. Resistance to APRA remains rampant, and in light of these continued attacks on the public’s right to know, it is all the more important that denials like this one be challenged.”
The full text of the brief is available here.
