Lucy's letter is top billing on today's ABA-HR e-brief Fwd: ABA-SIL Human Rights Committee e-Brief (Issue No. 274)

[Dwight Hines]

Dear Ted,

I don''t know about the delegates, but The Honorable Kerr and his
folks will know.  Please contact them directly and I'll try to find
out what the Cuban new constitutiional groups and the Balkans (Bosnia,
etc.) do about these types of ABA moves.

I think the librarians and the computer law people would be concerned,
as well some of the independent presses.

I'm copying Lucy's letter to other folks to forward and again, there
are quite a few folks in places without electricity, much less
internet, this summer.

d
P.S.  I'm in Wisconsin for the next week or so and then into Michigan
for a week before I get back to Florida, but I think it would  be good
to be sure the Afro-American Attorneys and the NAACP and ACLU know
about this.  Trouble is, in summer, everyone is out until late
August..

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Russell Kerr <russell@...>
Date: Jul 30, 2007 2:52 PM
Subject: ABA-SIL Human Rights Committee e-Brief (Issue No. 274)
To: INTHUMRIGHTS@...

Dear Subscribers:



This week's ABA-SIL Human Rights Committee e-Brief is attached in Word format.

If you have any difficulty viewing the attachment or would like to
view or print it directly from the web, you can go to:
http://meetings.abanet.org/webupload/commupload/IC950000/newsletterpubs/HumRght7.30.07.pdf
We appreciate your contributions, comments and suggestions and hope
you enjoy our newsletter.
Best regards,
Russell Kerr
===========================
RCFP LETTER
Reporters Committee urges ABA to reject access limits on criminal
justice records
July 26, 2007
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press urges the American
Bar Association to reject proposed
resolutions that would drastically limit public access to criminal
justice system records. The measures would violate
the First Amendment and state public disclosure laws and roll back the
presumption of openness in law
enforcement and judicial records.
On August 13-14 in San Francisco, the American Bar Association's
policy making body, the House of Delegates,
will vote on some of the most potentially damaging proposals to the
cause of open government in recent history.
July 30, 2007
������ BULLETIN BOARD
������ JOB, FELLOWSHIP & VOLUNTEER POSTING
������ EDUCATIONAL COURSES & CONFERENCES
������ HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS
������ REMINDER
ABA International Human Rights Committee e-Brief
July 30, 2007 ● Issue No. 274 ● International Human Rights Committee
The ABA's Commission on Effective Judicial Sanctions and the Criminal
Justice Section are co-sponsors of a series
of laudable but perilously misdirected resolutions on the voting
ballot that purport to encourage the successful
reentry and reintegration of people with criminal records through
increased employment opportunities.
The effect of these policy recommendations would roll back 40 years of
First Amendment jurisprudence creating a
presumption of openness in criminal proceedings, violate state open
records laws and eliminate the ability of the
public and press to act as watchdogs of the criminal justice system.
The commission's recommendation urges federal, state and local
governments to immediately "limit access" to
records of closed criminal cases without convictions to everyone
except law enforcement agencies.
This measure alone, if adopted by federal, state or local governments
as suggested by the recommendations, would
dramatically impede the press's ability to oversee the criminal
justice system. It would allow police and prosecutors
exclusive access to cases that did not result in convictions,
including in cases of prosecutor or police misconduct.
Equally troubling, the proposed resolutions also seek to automatically
seal misdemeanor and felony conviction
records "after the passage of a specified period of law-abiding
conduct." However law enforcement would again
have exclusive access to these otherwise secret files.
The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that allowing public access
to criminal justice information is essential
in order to have effective oversight of our legal system. Journalists,
lawyers, social scientists and concerned
members of the public use this information to investigate and analyze
various aspects of law enforcement, such as
racial profiling, corruption and abuse of power in our legal system.
As the First Circuit Court of Appeals stated in a 1989 case that
struck-down a Massachusetts statute authorizing
automatic criminal case sealing, "Without access to documents the
public would not have a 'full-understanding' of
the proceeding and therefore would not always be in a position to
serve as an effective check on the system."
In addition to closing courthouse records, the proposed resolutions
would also restrict public access to governmentretained
criminal information in records repositories like those found within
state police departments and made
accessible under many state open records law.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press strongly opposes
these recommendations. While the overall
goal of reduced recidivism through employment opportunities for past
offenders is commendable, the means by
which this end would be accomplished must be rejected.
"The public's right to know must not be sacrificed simply because
employers are wrongly discriminating against
those who have encountered the criminal justice system," Reporters
Committee Executive Director Lucy A.
Dalglish said.
"Alternative measures, including forbidding employers from using such
records as hiring criteria would be more
effective and would not surrender the public's fundamental rights of
access," Dalglish said.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is asking local media
to cover this attempt to limit access to the
public's criminal justice system records. The Reporters Committee is
also asking press organizations, open
government groups and concerned members of the public to let ABA
attorney-delegates know their positions
against these recommendations through print editorials, group
discussions and direct communications.
The website for inquiries to the American Bar Association is located
at www.abanet.org/contact/
July 30, 2007 ● Issue No. 274 ● International Human Rights Committee
The Reporters Committee's latest news article on the proposal is available
at: www.rcfp.org/news/mag/31-3/police_blotter.pdf
A previous letter to the ABA on this issue is available at
www.rcfp.org/news/documents/200719-lettertoab.pdf