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National Stories
The Ohio Supreme Court decided Monday not to hold a reporter in contempt of court for refusing to testify in a disciplinary hearing against an attorney. While the case was poised to answer the question of whether the state's reporter's privilege applied in quasi-judicial or administrative proceedings, the state's high court did not squarely answer this question. Instead of issuing a full opinion, the court briefly announced that it was dismissing the case and denying the Akron Bar Association's request to hold the reporter in contempt. According to the newspaper's attorney, Karen C. Lefton, as reported in the Akron Beacon Journal, this means that the bar association cannot force Akron Beacon Journal reporter Phil Trexler to testify at the lawyer's disciplinary hearing.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
As states look for new ways to save money through data sharing and analytics, prison costs have come into focus. The National Governors Association (NGA) announced on Feb. 20 the selection of three states — Illinois, Iowa and Tennessee — that will receive grants to participate in a program targeted at justice information sharing that could lead to cost savings. The program, called the Cross Boundary Corrections Information Exchange Policy Academy, shows high-level officials of participating states how they can share information between departments to reduce prisoner recidivism, save money and increase public safety. Funded primarily through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the program is designed to help governors and other top officials establish the policy framework necessary so that information can be shared between departments.
Governing
More than two-thirds of Americans like their public libraries and use them often, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center. The Pew analysis suggests that new forms of information technology are enhancing people's experience of libraries, rather than substituting for them. Even among Americans who don’t use libraries, many maintain positive views of them anyway. “We’ve touched the vast percentage of our communities and have drawn strong support,” said Jamie LaRue, former director of the Douglas County library system in Colorado and a proponent of having libraries publish e-books. LaRue said he hoped the Pew report would signal to government officials across the country that libraries continue to play a critical role at certain stages in people's lives. For instance, more than half of library users say libraries are important for helping them find and apply for jobs.
Governing
The top lawyer for the National Security Agency and others from the Obama administration made it clear to the U.S. government’s independent oversight board that tech titans knew about government surveillance while it was going on. NSA general counsel Rajesh De told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that tech titans were aware that the NSA was collecting communications and related metadata both for the NSA’s “PRISM” program and for “upstream” communications crossing the Internet.
CNET News
D.C. residents are getting a big present for this year’s Sunshine Week: a new Web site that should make it easier than ever to search, browse and use District law.
DCdecoded.org is a project of the nonpartisan OpenGov Foundation and the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability’s Office of Open Government. While the D.C. Code has long been available in libraries and through the D.C. Council Web site, it has long been accessible online only through clunky, proprietary Web sites geared toward lawyers and lawmakers, not the general public. The new Web site, which went live Wednesday, is part of the “America Decoded” project that has already put the legal codes of three states and four cities in a free, modern and accessible format that offers an attractive user interface, mouse-over definitions for many legal terms, easy-to-use permanent links to specific lines of the code, and the ability for programmers to interact with the Web site to build new applications.
Washington Post
A Suffolk, Mass., Superior Court jury has found that the Boston Herald committed actual malice in a story which falsely reported a woman had engaged in “sexual acts” with a Bridgewater inmate during a 2009 visit. David H. Rich of Todd & Weld in Boston, who represented Joanna Marinova, said a 15-person jury deliberated for two and half days before awarding $550,000 in emotional distress damages and $13,052 in compensatory damages. Rich — who helped secure a $2.1 million verdict in 2005 against the newspaper on behalf of former Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy — argued that the story was intended to sensationalize a trip that his client and Rep. Gloria Fox made to the prison to investigate alleged incidents of inmate abuse.
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
In her first newspaper job with The Frederick News-Post in Frederick, Md., Kelly Hinchcliffe got a call that the school district called a news conference. Why? she asked many times, but no one explained. So when Hinchcliffe showed up and saw a stack of press releases on the table, she grabbed one and sat down. A public information officer rushed over and said she couldn’t have the release until after the press conference. “I said, well, it becomes a public record when it’s created, not when you say you want to hand it to me,” Hinchcliffe told the woman.
Poynter
The Senate chairwoman of the Iowa Legislature’s Oversight Committee is demanding answers about six secret settlements paid to former state employees. “Spending almost $300,000 provided by taxpayers to pay former state employers to keep silent is outrageous,” said Sen. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines. “How did this happen? What information was intended to be concealed by these payments?” Most of the employees claimed they had lost their jobs because of Republican cronyism.
Des Moines Register
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