Jackson Jambalaya

It's a nice day for Jackson Jambalaya as the Clarion-Ledger editorial page made my winning fight to obtain the police reports in the Heather Spencer case the subject of its editorial today. The Jackson daily opined:
"Call it, Citizens 1, Gov't secrecy 0, in the first test of Mississippi's new configuring of the law ensuring access to public records.
In its first ruling since the 2008 Legislature gave it new authority, the Mississippi Ethics Commission has ruled a private citizen is entitled to redacted Jackson police initial incident reports involving George Bell III in the slaying of his ex-girlfriend.....
media representatives repeatedly said when seeking guarantees of government compliance with Mississippi's Open Records Act, the law is for the public, not simply media outlets. xxxxx is a private citizen not employed by a media company.
The purpose of the request has no bearing on whether public information is public. Incident reports are public by law. xxxxx says he wants the information to use on his Internet blog. Government should have no say over the intent of publishing or medium...."
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080916/OPINION01/809160323/1008/OPINION

In addition to the published editorial, JJ is posting a copy of the published opinion. Here are some excerpts:
"The central dispute presented to the Commission is the duty o f a law enforcement agency to produce documents containing information that meets the statutory definition of incident report, where such documents could be considered "investigative reports" under the current statutory definitions. This dispute arises because the reports in issue were created before the statutory definitions were enacted and because Jackson did not create a separate document at that time which contains only '"incident report* information. If Jackson had produced a separate "incident report' containing only the name and identification of each person charged with and arrested for the alleged offense, the time, date and location of the alleged offense, and the property involved, Jackson could simply produce that document. However, such is not the case.....

As it applies to the instant dispute, Jackson has in its possession documents that
contain investigative information. Clearly these documents are exempt from disclosure pursuant to Sec. 25-61-3. However, these exempt documents admittedly contain information that meets the statutory definition of incident report" under Section 25-61-3(e). To comply with the mandate in Section 25-61-55(2) well as the public policy codified throughout the Act, Jackson must redact the exempt investigative material from the documents and produce the nonexempt incident report information Failure to do so is a violation of the Act.."
http://jackson-jambalaya.googlegroups.com/web/Ethics+Commission+Opinion+on+Public+Records.pdf?gda=WmNpVGEAAACpt_Tri4u_xWELoGlFZT09e9dtt5eYXLbLCGrWeLYb5p_lEDef9X0c_XdaLwwHZyoI9cGV5CK1aKIDrKjx4WRdpl9VnGXE7D0_SrUvQx-tzVMJP-kItwVPBwjdKujmMDOVcV4Kf5x1iV4X6-2IalYA

This is just one step in the fight to make government more accountable to the people. This battle to open up public records benefits the public, not just the media, in the long run. One of the reasons Mississippi has been in last place for so long is because our government officials for too long have been able to hide their shenanigans and hijinks behind a veil of secrecy. Hopefully, other media outlets and private citizens will realize how valuable this tool is and make productive use of it.

Note: Correction for the CL editorial: It issued an opinion which said if Jackson had created a separate document containing only incident report information, such as the name, date and location of persons charged, the city could simply produce suc document. This is not completely true as the law also requires a "narrative description":
"Incident report" means a narrative description, if such narrative description exists and if such narrative description does not contain investigative information, of an alleged offense, and at a minimum shall include the name and identification of each person charged with and arrested for the alleged offense, the time, date and location of the alleged offense, and the property involved, to the extent this information is known..."

Earlier post reporting on Ethics Commission's decision:
http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2008/09/kingfish-requests-opinion-from-ethics.html
WLBT story:
http://www.wlbt.com/global/story.asp?s=9001359
Clarion-Ledger story:
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080913/NEWS/809130353/1001/news
Jackson's original reply to Ethics Commission inquiry:
http://jackson-jambalaya.googlegroups.com/web/09-02-08_Ethics_Letter%5B1%5D.pdf?gsc=ECkxewsAAAAGckAheHJlUw4Hi8907OxH
Original post:
http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2008/08/city-of-jackson-denies-requests-for.html