SN, MSU head to Mich. Supreme Court over reports

Request for 2006 police documents could have statewide implications

While students seize the opportunity to forget everything about MSU for the next week, the Michigan Supreme Court will hear arguments about how much information the university can legally withhold from them.

On Tuesday, representatives from MSU and The State News will present arguments in a lawsuit the newspaper filed against the school in May 2006. The lawsuit was filed after the university rejected The State News’ requests for police reports from a Feb. 23, 2006, assault in Hubbard Hall.

“It has to do with the quintessential right of the public to know about crime in their community,” State News lawyer Herschel Fink said. “That’s how the public holds its officials accountable.”

MSU lawyer Theresa Kelley declined to comment on the lawsuit.

MSU student Albert Robinson and nonstudents Joel Hamlar and Roy Holt were charged in connection with the assault, in which a gun was pointed at three victims and one was doused with gasoline and threatened to be lit on fire.

Since then, the court has either convicted or dismissed the cases of all three suspects.

The university argued that releasing the police report would be an invasion of privacy that could interfere with the investigation and deprive the suspects of a fair trial.

“Our position from day one has been clear,” MSU spokesman Terry Denbow said. “The message we have communicated from the start will be the message we communicate today and tomorrow.”

Denbow declined to specify what those messages were.

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Joyce Draganchuk sided with the university in the lawsuit, but her ruling was later revisited by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The lawsuit was referred to the Supreme Court after the university declined to settle outside of court.

Jane Briggs-Bunting, president of the State News Board of Directors, said the university’s decision not to settle the dispute out of court is a waste of university funds.

“Resources could be much better spent on not pursuing litigation that is specifically against the public interest, and more specifically student interests,” she said.

The identities of the assailants in the Hubbard Hall assault were released during their trials, but the university still refused to grant public access to the police reports.

After Tuesday’s hearing, the Supreme Court will rule on whether information kept private by a governing body is still considered private after it is released in court proceedings.

Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., said the lawsuit has implications beyond the Hubbard Hall assault.

“Police incident reports are the backbone of police reporting,” LoMonte said. “If journalists can’t get access to police incident reports, they can’t tell the public what types of crimes are occurring, where they are occurring, and who is being charged.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in the lawsuit could set a precedent for how future disputes over the public’s right to government information are handled, Briggs-Bunting said.

“The reason there’s a Freedom of Information Act, which requires public bodies to disclose (police reports), is to watchdog the government,” she said. “If the Supreme Court agrees with MSU’s decision, no police department throughout any of the state of Michigan would ever have to disclose anything until after or during a trial.”