Criminology Research Project Inc.

Criminology Research Project, Inc., is pleased that the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in favor of journalism and academic research when it handed down it’s ruling on September 18th.

The Project has been attempting to access certain files from several criminal justice agencies but will little success.  Hopefully, this latest court opinion will open, heretofore, closed investigative documents that relate to mass and spree murders that occurred decades ago.

A human rights center and two Huntsville attorneys declared victory Friday as the Alabama Supreme Court ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to open its records in the case of the death of an inmate from Athens.

The Southern Center for Human Rights of Atlanta and attorneys Jake Watson and Herman Watson Jr. filed the suit in September 2007 on behalf of Mary Barksdale of Athens, whose son Farron Barksdale died in an Alabama prison after pleading guilty to killing two Athens police officers in 2004.

Because Mrs. Barksdale deemed circumstances of her son’s death mysterious, attorneys demanded to see incident reports and corrections officers’ accounts of the day Farron was discovered non-responsive in an overheated isolation cell at Montgomery’s Kilby Correctional Facility in August 2007.

“We’re pleased with the court’s ruling,” Jake Watson said. “It’s definitely part of the democracy we pride ourselves in. Things going on in prison should be in the open.

As for the Barksdales, their son died, by all accounts, a mysterious death. The public has a right to know, newspapers have a right to know and to report, and the Barksdale family has a right to know.”

DOC officials, including Commissioner Richard Allen who was named as defendant in the suit, claimed the reports should be private because information in prison incident reports could lead to retaliation among prisoners.

The Supreme Court ruling indicated the DOC was “misinterpreting” the Open Records Act, Watson said.

“The ruling has a lot of implications, not only for this case but for other cases in the future,” he said.

The suit also demanded access to files in the unrelated deaths and assaults of inmates at other Alabama prisons, particularly Donaldson Correction Facility in Bessemer.

“The department’s conduct in this case was in clear violation of the Alabama Open Records Act,” said Sarah Geraghty, senior attorney at SCHR who represented the plaintiffs. “It’s wrong as a matter of law, wrong from an ethical perspective, and contrary to the ideals of transparency and open government endorsed by Alabama’s Attorney General.”

The Alabama Press Association, The Huntsville Times and other news organizations filed an amicus brief in support of the Open Records Act, Totonchi said.

While the ruling commands DOC to turn over those records to the plaintiffs, Sara Totonchi with SCHR said the court did not give a deadline.

“We filed this suit almost exactly two years ago so this process has gone on long enough,” Totonchi said Friday. “We hope they (DOC officials) turn them over in a timely manner.”

Watson said attorneys would meet to determine how to proceed. “We’ll get together next week and try to push it,” he said.

Brian Corbett, spokesman for the Alabama DOC, said in an e-mail Friday that he was out of the office and had not seen the ruling.