06 February 2007

judge swent waffles on public records suit

local attorney and blogger gregory aymond is seeking to acquire certain public records from the city of pineville, louisiana involving the electronic mails of its chief of staff rich dupree. mr. aymond has the legal right to have those e-mails that are public records. in fact the law says that the citizen requester doesnt even have to give a reason why they want the public documents. surprisingly, the city of pineville is relentlessly fighting the release of these public record emails. the city says that there are around 9,700 emails involved and some are of a personal nature or are "privileged" and as such arent subject to louisiana's public open records law. the city also maintains that it would be too costly to sort through all these emails to differentiate between those which are public and which are not.

on monday 05 february2007 there was a hearing held at the rapides parish courthouse before judge florence rae swent. the purpose of the hearing was supposedly to get a ruling as to whether or not the judge would review the emails in camera and determine which are public record and which are not - this judicial in camera inspection is a mechanism provided for under louisiana open records law.

town talk snip:
In a hearing Monday, 9th Judicial District Court Judge Rae Swent made it clear she had neither the time nor the inclination to sift through about 10,000 of Rich Dupree's e-mails, which lawyer Greg Aymond is requesting of the judge in an "in-camera" inspection -- an inspection made by the judge without the presence of the prosecutor and defense counsel. -- wst... note where the town talk gets the idea that a prosecutor and defense counsel are involved beats us because this is a civil matter. "I'm certainly not prepared to sit for weeks and determine what you want," Swent said, conceding the case is "very complicated." -- judge swent.
actually the case isnt complicated at all. state law provides for the production of public records to its citizen requesters and the governmental body has to provide them. simple as that. since the state law provides for this in camera inspection then its exactly the judges job to sit and sift through the emails. when the judge held up her right hand and swore to uphold the state constitution and laws and since this in camera inspection is a part of the state law then she has to do it. judge swent, despite being elected to her office by the citizens of rapides parish to carry out the states laws has decided to let the third circuit court of appeals make her decision for her.

according to pineville's answer to aymond's interrogatory number 9 here pineville uses the outlook express email client. it just so happens that we use outlook express and have for years.

click pictures to enlarge

within outlook express is a very simple tool to make email storage folders.

you know like oh say a public records emails folder and a privileged emails folder:


then all you have to do is drag and drop the emails in question into the appropriate folder

there is reportedly around 9,700 emails in question and there is no reason that a clerk couldnt do this in no more than three days. they could do it in a day if they wanted to.

thanks to william of ockham when we apply his tried and true scientific principle lex parsimoniae also called occam's razor the only conclusion that one can come to is that the city of pineville is fighting the release of these emails at all costs because they are hiding something.