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Nashua Telegraph Editorial board agrees with KingCast on open government. Again.

By Christopher King

Judge stands tall in sealed-file case

BACKGROUND:
A district court judge has rejected a bid by the Milford Police Department to seal an entire court file in order to protect the reputation of one of its officers.

CONCLUSION:
We hope the judge?s ruling sends a loud and clear message that these ill-advised efforts won?t be tolerated in our criminal justice system.

"Anyone who reads the online comments at the end of our news stories or the forum section of our Web site knows that our local men and women in blue aren't always treated with respect.

In fact, a Web search of our forums for the word "police" on Tuesday afternoon came back with 261 different matches, meaning the term showed up at least once in each of these topic files. Not all of the references are derogatory, of course, but many of them are.

That's why when police officials decide to act in such a way that can be perceived as trying to protect one of their own, it doesn't do much to combat the stereotype that comes with that profession.

For that, we commend Judge Crocker for her decision and her commitment to the principles of open government. Any attempt to cast a shadow on our criminal justice system serves only to further erode the public's trust in its government."

I cited Judge Crocker's opinion in this post noting that Franconia and NH AG Kelly Ayotte have no business trying to his witness identity, ballistic and fingerprint information in the Franconia shooting tragedy that left Liko Kenney and Bruce McKay dead, and 3-time felon Gregory Floyd running around, cleared in one day, to terrorize his neighborhood where he is now -- again -- up on charges of criminal threats. He was convicted before and Judge Vaughn granted the movant a Permanent Restraining Order just 2 weeks before he heard the KingCast v. Ayotte Right-to-Know case.

When did the Editorial Board agree with KingCast on prior occasion?

With the Right-to-Know School Board issue one year ago.

Full post as published by Chris King's 1st Amendment Page on February 07, 2008 (boomark / email).