{"id":639,"date":"2010-10-03T21:40:55","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T01:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richardhornsby.com\/?p=639"},"modified":"2010-10-03T21:40:55","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T01:40:55","slug":"caseys-public-record-exception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/caseys-public-record-exception\/","title":{"rendered":"Casey’s “Public Record” Exception"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an interesting twist, the Fourth District Court of Appeals<\/a> issued Bent v. Sun-Sentinel<\/a> (PDF), which held that an accused<\/strong> inmate’s phone conversations were not “public records” within the meaning of Florida’s public records law, and thus were not subject to being released to the media.<\/p>\n

Far Reaching Implications<\/h2>\n

This ruling obviously has very far reaching implications, as in\u00a0addition\u00a0to her\u00a0jail-house\u00a0telephone calls and video visitation, \u00a0its reasoning applies equally as well to Casey’s written letters, if obtained and copied by corrections. However, I do not think it applies to the jail’s visitor log, but as I explain below, I think they have a legitimate argument that it does.<\/p>\n

No More Excuses?<\/h2>\n

What this obviously means for Casey Anthony is that she no longer has a legitimate excuse not to see or speak with her parents, as the ruling’s holding would apply to both video and audio recordings. Or would she?<\/p>\n

What will remain to be seen is whether this ruling would prohibit the State Attorney’s Office, as opposed to the jail, from releasing the recordings in discovery.<\/p>\n

The Practical Fall Out<\/h2>\n

The practical application of this ruling is that the ability of the State Attorney to release the information will depend on whether the recordings were turned over to the State and the State then decided that they might possibly use the recordings as evidence.<\/p>\n

I believe that the State’s ability to release the tapes would depend on whether the recordings realistically held any evidentiary value. For example, if it is just Casey chatting with a friend who is uninvolved with the case, the recordings would not be subject to release.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if it was a recording of Casey talking to a witness in the case, say her mother or father, it might be subject to release if the recording held potential evidentiary use at trial. If the recording was of no evidentiary value, the recording would not be subject to release not withstanding that the person whom Casey was speaking to was a witness in the case.<\/p>\n

A Big IF<\/h2>\n

More than likely what will happen is that Judge Perry would have to make a case-by-case decision on whether to release recordings the State obtained from the jail – IF Casey were to resume contact with her parents.<\/p>\n

Expect a Renewed Argument<\/h2>\n

So expect the defense to file a Motion first thing next week to enforce the\u00a0Bent v. Sun-Sentinel<\/a><\/span> ruling in Casey’s case.<\/span><\/p>\n

But also expect the defense to grasp on to the below underlined language from the\u00a0Bent v. Sun-Sentinel<\/a><\/span> case:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
The expectation that a deputy or\u00a0state attorney may listen to a call is very different from an expectation <\/span>that anyone and everyone could listen to the calls. Sensitive or <\/span><\/span>embarrassing information, or information that would otherwise be <\/span><\/span>confidential<\/span>, like financial information of the inmate or the person called, <\/span>could be disclosed to the public. Treating the recordings as public <\/span>records allows anyone to request the recorded calls. Moreover, an <\/span><\/span>accused child should be able to consult with a parent without the <\/span><\/span>communication becoming a public record<\/span>.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/span>I suspect that the defense will argue this reasoning applies equally as strong to their contention that her defense team’s visitation log should not be subject to disclosure either, because just like the minor accused defendant in the Bent case, Casey’s attorneys will argue that she should be able to communicate with her attorneys (and order bras) without the occurrences becoming public record.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
I also suspect that Judge Perry might be inclined to rule in their favor as it applies to the visitation logs, but what ultimately will need to happen is the defense act like real attorneys, and instead of whining to judge Perry, they instead file a Writ of Certiorari (basically an interlocutory appeal) like the “defense attorneys” in Bent did and ask the Fifth District Court of Appeals to define what is a public record as it applies to the Casey Anthony case.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
p.s. Some of you budding legal eagles may have noticed that the Fourth District Court of Appeals issued the Bent opinion and surmised that it is not binding on the Casey Anthony case since the Fifth District Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over her case.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
If this is what you believed, you would be wrong. As a District Court opinion on an issue of first impression is binding on all circuit courts unless and until another District Court issues a contrary opinion. See Pardo v. State, 596 So. 2d 665 (Fla. 1992)<\/a>. If a District Court were to issue a contrary ruling, the Florida Supreme Court would then have “conflict” jurisdiction to decide the issue once and for all.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casey Anthony’s phone and video visitation recordings are not longer public records, or are they?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}