An Ingham County Circuit Court judge ruled Thursday that MSU properly withheld documents from The State News detailing an alleged Feb. 23 Hubbard Hall assault.
Judge Joyce Draganchuk said during an afternoon proceeding that releasing the police report would needlessly disclose personal information of innocent individuals — such as witnesses and victims — and not significantly contribute to the public's understanding of government operations, as well as taint potential jurors.
Although the community has a right to know about crime, the urgent need for government transparency was not presented in this case, she said.
"It's a validation and affirmation of the principles of the integrity of a police investigation and the rights to privacy," MSU spokesman Terry Denbow said Thursday, but refused to further comment on the ruling.
Brian Wassom, partner to First Amendment and media lawyer Herschel Fink and also representing the newspaper, said The State News lost every argument it made against the university.
"The judge did a good job of bringing up every argument we raised and why she rejected every argument," he said. "We have a strong basis for appeal.
"By appealing, we could create a precedent that would not only aid The State News, but other newspapers as well."
Wassom said there is no guarantee the university will release the police reports after a criminal prosecution. People still want to know exactly what happened during the assassination of former president John F. Kennedy and the subsequent investigations into the death of former Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, he said.
He added that the alleged Hubbard Hall assault won't be any different.
"No information can be more public than crime and how public officials react to crime," Wassom said.
Jane Briggs-Bunting, a member of The State News Board of Directors, said she isn't surprised by the decision, considering MSU has a strong presence in the area and the judge was a former prosecutor and police officer.
"We felt there would be a difficult time getting a decision without all the political complications the situation has engendered," she said. "I don't think it's the proper decision, but that's why there is law and appellate courts."
Briggs-Bunting said the board will consult lawyers on the situation and decide what the newspaper will do next.
According to denial letters from the university, releasing the information would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy, interfere with investigation proceedings and deprive the men arrested of a fair trial.
Theresa Kelley, defense attorney for MSU, maintained in court that the documents are properly withheld because they are "personal in nature" and "contain embarrassing and intimate details of private lives." She added that releasing such information might cause people involved to retaliate against witnesses or victims.
"This is about private persons with private lives who just so happened to be caught up in a crime," Kelley said in court Thursday. "It's absurd that we need to tell The State News who we are investigating."
Such personal information includes names, addresses, ethnicity, gender and driver's license numbers, she said.
All information of this kind can be found in 54-B District Court records, which are available to the public.
Wassom said the university has yet to clearly detail how releasing such information would interfere with an investigation.
The assailants already knew who they were attacking, and the names of the men arrested in connection with the alleged assault and one of the victims had already been printed in The State News, Wassom said in court.
"There's absolutely nothing private about crime," Wassom said. "How crime happens itself is information people are entitled to have."
