Thursday, April 21, 2016
Associated Press
COLUMBUS
The Ohio Supreme Court is deciding whether police departments can shield the complete files of a long-closed criminal case until all chance of appeals are exhausted, usually because the defendant is dead.
A public-records lawsuit contends that the position taken by the Columbus Police Department and backed by the local prosecutor is part of a trend around the state of agencies refusing to release such records.
The court, in a special session in Meigs County in southern Ohio, heard from both sides Wednesday. A decision isn’t expected for months.
At issue is an attempt by the Ohio Innocence Project to review the case of a man sentenced to 38 years in prison for killing a woman in 2005. The project doesn’t represent defendant Adam Saleh but wants to review the records, which Saleh alleges will bolster his claim that he didn’t do it.
Evidence released through public records has resulted in numerous exonerations of wrongfully convicted inmates, open records attorney Fred Gittes argued in a filing last June.
“These exonerations have not weakened our system of justice; they have strengthened it, by providing another device for correcting the unavoidable missteps of a system that can never attain perfection, but should always strive for it,” Gittes said.
The lawsuit argued that changes in state Supreme Court evidence rules have addressed concerns raised by older court rulings regarding the release of case files. The lawsuit wants the court to order Columbus to make the records immediately available.
A 2000 appeals court ruling said police aren’t obligated to release the files without proof that no further appeals are possible, “e.g., the defendant’s death.”
Police departments and their records divisions don’t know all the facts behind investigative files, including what witnesses might have been promised confidentiality, Paula Lloyd, an assistant Columbus city attorney, wrote in a court filing last July.
Open-records law “must be balanced against the compelling need to let police investigators do their jobs effectively,” Lloyd said.
Because Saleh’s conviction was based in part on the testimony of several jailhouse informants, Saleh contends that a full review of the case could exonerate him, according to the suit.