Judge won't release grand jury testimony in Eric Garner chokehold death

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge today refused to release testimony heard by a grand jury that declined to indict a police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, arguing there wasn't a good enough reason to make the secret information public.

The New York Civil Liberties Union and others had asked the court to order Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan to release the grand jury transcript, including the testimony of the officer involved, Daniel Pantaleo, and dozens of witnesses, detailed descriptions of evidence and other documentation.

A similar step was voluntarily taken by the prosecutor in Ferguson, Missouri, when a grand jury there refused to indict an officer in the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Both Garner and Brown were black; the officers involved are white. The deaths sparked nationwide protests about the treatment of communities of color by law enforcement and a debate about the role of race in policing.

The effort to make the Garner grand jury record public had been considered in a longshot given that New York laws explicitly bar disclosure absent a court order. But the decision also comes amid an ongoing debate over whether the laws should be revised to provide more transparency in the process, particularly when it involves police shootings.

Civil liberties lawyers had argued that the public needs to reconcile the widely watched video of Garner's July 17 death with the decision not to indict the officer involved.