People have right to see public records

By By Bob Martin, The Alabama Scene
The people of Alabama have a right under state law to know whether or not prison guards or inmates beat a prisoner to death. Gov. Bob Riley and his prison commissioner Richard Allen are refusing to turn over prison records on the death of convicted murderer Farron Barksdale, even after a Montgomery Circuit Judge told them to release the records immediately.
The state has appealed the ruling.
Barksdale killed two Athens police officers in 2004 and had just started serving a life sentence for the murders when he was found dead in his cell in August, 2007.
Another inmate, in a letter to the court, has said he witnessed a group of prison guards beating Barksdale. The letter was sent to Montgomery Circuit Judge Eugene Reese who had issued the ruling for the records to be released.
The letter named three guards and indicated there was a fourth.
Prison Commissioner Allen says the department is disputing Reese’s ruling and lawyers asked him not to allow any release of records until the case is decided on appeal. He says release of the information “would subject inmates and correctional staff to various levels of harm.”
But attorneys for an Atlanta law center has filed a motion saying the department has sufficient latitude because Reese’s order allows it to redact sensitive information that it believes could threaten a person or “jeopardize a pending criminal investigation.”
The main issue here is the state’s public records laws which clearly state that these records are public.
The law center says the issue is about the department’s refusal to release any records regarding any incident that happens in any Department of Corrections facility. The Department is required to report the death of a prisoner and how the prisoner died. To refuse to do so is certainly an abuse of the law.
Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. E-mail him at: bob@montgomeryindependent.com