BlueCrab
New Member
This article appeared in the Rocky Mountain News on October 22, 2004.
"We come, with some trepidation, to the defense of the lawyers at Fox News.
"No, not the hapless gang charged with defending Bill O'Reilly in his dispute with associate producer Andrea Mackris. If the quotes she attributes to him in her sexual harrassment suit are on the tape, they have nowhere to crawl but the settlement table.
"We're talking about the attorneys defending the network against defamation charges filed by the family of JonBenet Ramsey, the Boulder child killed almost eight years ago. The family sued Fox News last year over a 2002 broadcast in which reporter Carol McKinley said there has "never been any evidence to link an intruder to her brutal murder."
"In order to defend the network, lawyers are trying to subpoena records from the Boulder district attorney's office, which is in charge of the investigation. Boulder DA Mary Keenan has moved to quash the subpoenas and a federal judge is mulling the issue.
"Fox has an uphill road. The usual rule, says law professor Christopher Mueller of the University of Colorado, is that prosecutors are entitled to keep their work product secret "to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigations." When the investigation is finished and the case is closed, the justification "diminishes sharply."
"Of course this case isn't closed, but the real question is, just how "ongoing" is it?
"Keenan is on record saying she believes the evidence points to an intruder, not a member of the family. This newspaper has reported that her prime suspect was a man who played Santa Claus at the Ramsey home two nights before the Christmas 1996 slaying. He later moved away and has since died.
"But belief isn't evidence. If Keenan has reached a dead end, she should be happy to turn over at least some of the records to an interested party in hopes of having fresh eyes on the case. True, Fox News is more or less considered the devil by liberals everywhere, especially in Boulder, but sometimes truth comes from the most unexpected places.
"If Keenan won't volunteer the information, we hope the judge will exercise his discretion and find that the investigation is basically moribund. He could then require the DA to explain why each record she wants to withold should be kept secret."
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I for one agree with the position of the Rocky Mountain News. There really isn't any "ongoing investigation", and the records in the DA's office should be made available. There's not even any money allotted for an active investigation into the murder. There's no good reason remaining for Boulder authorities to carry on the charade.
JMO
"We come, with some trepidation, to the defense of the lawyers at Fox News.
"No, not the hapless gang charged with defending Bill O'Reilly in his dispute with associate producer Andrea Mackris. If the quotes she attributes to him in her sexual harrassment suit are on the tape, they have nowhere to crawl but the settlement table.
"We're talking about the attorneys defending the network against defamation charges filed by the family of JonBenet Ramsey, the Boulder child killed almost eight years ago. The family sued Fox News last year over a 2002 broadcast in which reporter Carol McKinley said there has "never been any evidence to link an intruder to her brutal murder."
"In order to defend the network, lawyers are trying to subpoena records from the Boulder district attorney's office, which is in charge of the investigation. Boulder DA Mary Keenan has moved to quash the subpoenas and a federal judge is mulling the issue.
"Fox has an uphill road. The usual rule, says law professor Christopher Mueller of the University of Colorado, is that prosecutors are entitled to keep their work product secret "to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigations." When the investigation is finished and the case is closed, the justification "diminishes sharply."
"Of course this case isn't closed, but the real question is, just how "ongoing" is it?
"Keenan is on record saying she believes the evidence points to an intruder, not a member of the family. This newspaper has reported that her prime suspect was a man who played Santa Claus at the Ramsey home two nights before the Christmas 1996 slaying. He later moved away and has since died.
"But belief isn't evidence. If Keenan has reached a dead end, she should be happy to turn over at least some of the records to an interested party in hopes of having fresh eyes on the case. True, Fox News is more or less considered the devil by liberals everywhere, especially in Boulder, but sometimes truth comes from the most unexpected places.
"If Keenan won't volunteer the information, we hope the judge will exercise his discretion and find that the investigation is basically moribund. He could then require the DA to explain why each record she wants to withold should be kept secret."
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I for one agree with the position of the Rocky Mountain News. There really isn't any "ongoing investigation", and the records in the DA's office should be made available. There's not even any money allotted for an active investigation into the murder. There's no good reason remaining for Boulder authorities to carry on the charade.
JMO