Connecticut

The Greenwich Time reports that a hearing on Michael Skakel's release from jail will be held next week. The Kennedy cousin has won a new trial after a judge ruled that he received inadequate representation by his defense lawyer. Skakel was convicted many years after teenager Martha Moxley was killed by being beaten and stabbed with golf clubs that belonged to Skakel's family.

The Associated Press reports that "a Connecticut judge said Friday that he wants to hear the 911 recordings from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting before ruling whether they can be released to the media."The judge set a Nov. 25 hearing on whether the recordings can be sealed so he access them, the AP also reports.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings, Connecticut has been having a huge debate on where to draw the line between public access to law enforcement records like 911 calls and protecting victims' families from further trauma and further invasions of their privacy. During testimony before a legislative task force, the spouse of one of the adults killed in the shooting suggested a compromise, according to the Hartford Courant: "Bill Sherlach, whose wife Mary was among the six adults and 20 children shot to death on Dec. 14, told members of the Task Force on Victim Privacy and the Public's Right to Know that he's willing to support a compromise: the release of a written account of the 911 calls made that day, as long as the audio is not made public. 'Transcripts can rely all the information that the public wants without having to hear the sounds of a slaughter in the background,'' he said."

There is a current debate in Connecticut on where to draw the line on access t0 law enforcement records like 911 tapes and crime-scene photos and the public's right to know in the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. An attorney for most of the families of the Sandy Hook victims testified at a legislative task force that they do not want public disclosure of the 911 calls made because of the shooting, The Norwich Bulletin reports. While attorney Morgan Rueckert acknowledged the argument that the media has standards and does not always use the information accessed through right-t0-know requests, '"the reality is, every person now with a computer is an editor, a journalist and a publisher. The law needs to change to keep up and to stay in line with our peers."'

AP Editor William J. Kole writes that reason that his news organization requested the tapes of 911 calls made about the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., is because it would be in the public interest to examine "the law enforcement response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history." But, while Kole said a prosecutor's refusal to release the records breaks the law, he also points out that the AP may not use the 911 calls: "It’s journalism’s dirty little secret: Just because we have information doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to use it."

A legislative task force appointed to give advice to elected representatives on the release of crime scene photos and emergency-call recordings heard testimony that "the news media needs access to as much information as possible -- even gruesome photos -- about Connecticut homicides in order to better inform the public," The Connecticut Post reported.

Meanwhile, a Connecticut legislator, whose district includes the town where the Sandy Hook school shootings occurred, questioned trusting the judgment of the media about releasing such materials. '"The idea of the public's need to know and the public's intrusion versus the victims' rights was obscene, in my mind. Having been there, having observed the behavior of the media was outrageous. To ask me to specifically trust the judgments of the media, I'm not willing to do that,"' The Post reported the legislator saying.

A Connecticut panel, appointed to review the state's public records laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings, heard testimony related to its charge to "recommend to lawmakers how to alter the delicate balance of victims' right to privacy and the public's right to know about crimes and the operations of agencies like police departments," The Connecticut Post reports.  One father whose son was murdered asked: '"What right do have to see my son's body or hear his last moments, just because such information is in a government file cabinet?"' The Post reported. But proponents of disclosure testified it would keep law enforcement accountable for their response in emergency situations.

Connecticut is only one of nine states restricting the public disclosure of crime scene photos, Connecticut News Junkie reports on a survey conducted by the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research. Connecticut also is only one of 11 states restricting the public disclosure of 911 calls.

"Over the past few weeks the legislature’s research staff has been compiling reports for a task force convened by lawmakers to weigh the privacy of crime victims against the public’s right to know under the state’s Freedom of Information Act," Conneticut News Junkie reports. "The panel was created by a law that carved out new disclosure restrictions on the release of some law enforcement records pertaining to homicide victims and victims who are children" in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings.