KY Papers win Open Records Precedent on Child Deaths
Wonder what local newspapers are for? Fighting for years to force state government to make public how it handles child abuse cases that lead to deaths.
Holding the people's government accountable to the people, goddammit, that's what for.
Bill Estep at the Herald:
The state will pay a $250,000 penalty to Kentucky’s two largest newspapers to settle a lawsuit that requires public disclosure of documents about children who die or are severely injured from abuse or neglect.
The newspapers had fought the legal battle for years as they attempted to assess state efforts to protect vulnerable children.
The Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which investigates cases in which children might have died as a result of abuse or neglect, also agreed to pay attorney fees of $110,000 to the Lexington Herald-Leader and $339,000 to The (Louisville) Courier-Journal.
The $250,000 is a penalty for violating the state’s open records law.
Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip J. Shepherd ordered a much higher penalty, $756,000, in 2013, ruling that the cabinet had willfully refused to release documents as required by state law in response to the newspapers’ requests.
The cabinet acted as if the law was “an obstacle to be circumvented rather than a law mandating compliance,” Shepherd wrote.
A panel of the state Court of Appeals upheld that ruling this year, saying public agencies must permit inspection of public records as required by the law “or risk meaningful punishment for noncompliance.”
“Rigid adherence to this stark principle is the lifeblood of a law which rightly favors disclosure, fosters transparency and secures the public trust,” Judge Irv Maze wrote in the majority opinion.
The newspapers agreed to the lower penalty amount, and the state agreed to drop its request for the state Supreme Court to review the case. Each paper will receive $125,000.
Rufus Friday, president and publisher of the Herald-Leader, said the newspaper was evaluating options for using the penalty to serve the community and promote transparency, with an emphasis on child welfare, families and social services.
The real goal of fighting for access to the records was to promote greater openness in child welfare, Friday said.
“This resolution leaves no doubt that these records related to state government’s role in protecting its most vulnerable citizens are open for public scrutiny. That has been our goal from the beginning,” Friday said.
SNIP
The path to the settlement made public Monday started with a gruesome tragedy in May 2009, when Kayden Daniels, a 20-month-old Wayne County boy, died after accidentally drinking caustic drain cleaner that had been used to make methamphetamine at a trailer where his teenage parents had been staying.
The Herald-Leader asked the state for records detailing its involvement with Kayden and his mother.
However, the agency had a longstanding policy against publicly releasing files on children who died or were badly injured in such cases, and it denied the newspaper’s request for documents.
That was the genesis for a court fight in which the Herald-Leader and The Courier-Journal ultimately sued the cabinet for access to files on 140 children killed or badly hurt in 2009 and 2010.
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