Citizen activist Schroeder takes his protracted government-records battle all the way to Utah’s Supreme Court
Encouraging news this morning in Dan Schroeder's Envision Ogden GRAMA request matter, as Salt Lake Tribune reporter Cathy McKitrick reports that "citizen activist Dan Schroeder said he will take his related government-records battle all the way to Utah’s Supreme Court to piece together the whole story on what occurred with Envision Ogden, an organization launched in early 2007 to boost business in Ogden":
Ms. McKitrick's story goes on to report that "Jeff Hunt, David Reymann and LaShel Shaw — attorneys with Salt Lake City-based Parr Brown Gee and Loveless — recently took on Schroeder’s case and plan to argue the appeal pro bono in the state’s high court."
"The case raises some significant issues regarding the intersection between the Utah State Constitution and the Government Records Access and Management Act [GRAMA]," Hunt said of his reasons for hopping onboard.
That's it for now, O Gentle Readers. We'll continue to follow this story, of course, as the case progresses, in the hope that all essential facts of this case will be ultimately revealed.
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8 comments:
C'mon people.. When the smoke clears, all we wanna know is who signed and/or endorsed them danged Checks????
AG drags his feet, refusing to investigate for a long time, until statute of limitations runs out before investigation can be completed fully. Then courts refuse to release information because no prosecution can result because statute of limitations ran out.
Boy, that's some catch, that catch-22.
And the AG's atty's at the last hearing actually made the point that the case was old and the people of Ogden, "DON'T CARE."
By that standard, the AG's office ought to put every potential prosecution in such matters to a community referendum to see if the community "cares" enough to have an investigation go forward. Be interesting to have the AG run on such a plank: "I'll leave my work up to you, but I'll cash my paychecks any way!" Sounds like a sure campaign winner to me....
In reply to Bob Becker
AB 1: Passed on the first day of the session by our ever so trusty, community oriented Utah State Legislature. A sure thing. I look forward to it.
HB1: Sorry, wrong state.
The statute of limitations wasn't a reason mentioned by the court. The stated reason for not ordering the release of the bank records was to protect the privacy of the bank customer (Envision Ogden) and the others that it transacted business with. For most bank records, this might be a valid reason but GRAMA's privacy exemption isn't sufficiently broad to apply in this particular case. Therefore the court ruled directly from the state constitution's "unreasonable search and seizure" provision. Oddly, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the identical provision in the U.S. Constitution does not apply to records held by a bank or other third party. But courts in Utah and several other states have basically disagreed with that and established a state constitutional right to privacy of bank records. The question, then, is over the scope of that state constitutional right and whether, in a GRAMA case, it goes beyond GRAMA's much more explicit protections.
This came up in the context of GRAMA's provision for "balancing" the public interest in disclosure vs. the opposing interest in secrecy. But the judge didn't fall for it; he acknowledged that there's a valid and significant public interest in these records, but ruled that the privacy of bank records is more fundamental.
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