Forbidden Knowledge
On Friday the South Bend Tribune reported:
The Indiana Court of Appeals granted a request Friday that prevents The Tribune from publishing records the newspaper obtained from the Department of Child Services.
The appeals court’s ruling came three days after a local judge ordered the release of phone records from DCS’s child abuse hotline related to 10-year-old Tramelle Sturgis and his family — ending weeks of DCS legal efforts to keep them out of the public realm.
The records include four audio recordings of hotline calls and accompanying transcripts related to Tramelle, who was found tortured and killed in his home Nov. 4.
But an hour after The Tribune published a story on its website Friday that described one of the phone calls and raised related issues, the appeals court granted the emergency stay DCS requested to prevent The Tribune from publishing the material.
On advice from its attorney, The Tribune removed the story from its website and is forced to refrain from publishing information about the content of the calls. If it does otherwise, the newspaper could be held in contempt of court.
“I am saddened by today’s ruling that delays us from telling this important story,” said Kim Wilson, The Tribune’s president and publisher. “We will continue to fight to provide additional insight and information that might help our community to prevent future tragedies such as the untimely death of Tramelle Sturgis last year.”
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday in Indianapolis. The court will hear arguments from DCS and The Tribune, with each side given 20 minutes to make its case.
The Indiana Law Blog has posted the DCS’s petition in the Court of Appeals for the emergency stay of the trial court order, the South Bend Tribune’s response, and the Order issued by the Court of Appeals granting the stay.
According to the report in the South Bend Tribune linked to above:
In a motion filed Friday afternoon objecting to DCS’s motion for an emergency stay, Tribune attorney Gerald Lutkus argued the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently struck down efforts to restrain the media from publishing information, whether temporarily or permanently.
“The stay requested by DCS is patently unconstitutional in that it is a classic prior restraint on the press,” Lutkus wrote in his motion.
Steve Key, executive director of the Hoosier State Press Association, said it is “very rare” for a court to grant such an order.
“Anytime the government steps in to prevent newspapers from publishing information that they legitimately obtained, it raises huge first amendment issues,” Key said.
He said DCS’s attempt to keep The Tribune from publishing stories on records it already has in its possession is like “trying to put the genie back in the bottle after you’ve let it loose.”
Indeed, the story that the Tribune was forced to remove from its website by the Court of Appeals’ Order is still loose on Google’s cache: ‘This boy is beat to death’: Caller in May pleads 10 times for immediate intervention at Sturgis home.
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