Court To Study Release of Documents By RICHARD CARELLI .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court today agreed to decide whether states may block release of police records and other government documents to those who would sell the information even when the records routinely are released to the news media and others. The justices said they will review rulings that struck down such a California law as a violation of commercial free-speech rights. Elsewhere around the country, courts have reached conflicting rulings on the legitimacy of laws aimed at protecting the privacy of people arrested by police. Courts have upheld laws similar to California's in cases from Colorado, Louisiana and South Carolina. Courts have struck down similar laws in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico and Texas. California lawmakers amended the state's public records law in 1996 to limit the release of information on arrested suspects and crime victims to those with ``a scholarly, journalistic, political or governmental purpose or ... a licensed private investigator.'' Anyone given such records had to certify that the information would ``not be used directly or indirectly to sell a product or service.'' Union Reporting Publishing Corp., which had sold lists of names and addresses of arrested people to lawyers, insurance companies and driving schools, sued the Los Angeles Police Department over its enforcement of the law. A federal trial judge blocked enforcement of the law, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling. ``It is not rational,'' the appeals court said last June, ``for a statute which purports to advance the governmental interest in protecting privacy of arrestees to allow the names and addresses of the same to be published in any newspaper ... or magazine in the country so long as the information is not used for commercial purposes.'' In the appeal acted on today, lawyers for the police department argued that ``restrictions on the release of government records do not violate the First Amendment'' because they merely block access and do not restrict commercial speech. ``California unquestionably could adopt a complete prohibition on access to arrestee address records, which would more completely protect the privacy of arrestees,'' the appeal said. ``But such a prohibition would deprive the press of address information, which although it would be constitutional would be inimical to the fundamental goals of the First Amendment.'' The case is Los Angeles Police Department vs. Union Reporting Publishing, 98-678.
Newspaper Denied Access to Fee Data By RICHARD CARELLI .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- A New Mexico newspaper's bid to gain access to documents detailing costs of providing court-appointed lawyers for 22 alleged members of an Albuquerque street gang linked to murder and drug trafficking failed in the Supreme Court today. The court, without comment, let stand a ruling that blocked access to most of the court-sealed fee, cost and expense documents sought by the Albuquerque Journal. In denying access, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last July that the newspaper had no constitutional right to that information. In the appeal acted on today, the paper's lawyers said that ruling wrongly ``interferes with the right of the people to be informed about happenings in the criminal justice system.'' Under a 1964 law, the Criminal Justice Act, guarantees that defendants in federal criminal trials will have lawyers appointed to help them if they cannot afford to hire their own. Most such representation is handled by public defenders, but some of that work goes to private lawyers who bill the trial court for their work under rates provided for in federal law. During the 1996 trial of the 22 alleged members of the ``Sureno 13'' street gang, the Albuquerque newspaper sought access to all the paperwork related to compensating and reimbursing the defendants' court-appointed private lawyers. A federal judge ordered that those documents remain sealed until the trial ended and every convicted defendant had been sentenced. At the time, three of the alleged gang members faced possible death sentences. The newspaper appealed, seeking immediate access. The defendants also appealed, seeking to block access permanently. The 10th Circuit court ruled all the documents except certain vouchers and the raw payment totals paid to such lawyers be permanently sealed, noting that the newspaper could not hope to get any cost and expense information from Justice Department prosecutors or from the federal public defenders. The appeals court also ruled that the sought-after information was not ``trial documents in any accepted sense of that term.'' The newspaper's appeal said other appeals courts have found a First Amendment right to such materials. The amendment guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The case is The Albuquerque Journal vs. Gonzales, 98-831.
