Re: 8/29/01 - NH Register: FOI Commission denies request for Jovin police file
FOI Commission denies request for Jovin police file
William Kaempffer, Register Staff August 29, 2001
In a preliminary decision released Tuesday, a hearing officer for the FOI commission ruled in favor of the New Haven Police Department, which had refused to release documents pertaining to the Dec. 4, 1998, murder of the Yale senior.
A request had been made for access to the case file in March under the state "sunshine" law.
FOI attorney Barbara E. Housen, the hearing officer, ruled that police were justified when they rejected the request for witness statements, investigative reports and a copy of the 911 audiotape reporting the assault.
She determined that releasing the documents would jeopardize unnamed informants, witnesses and the investigation as a whole.
No one has been charged in the murder, which made international news. Only one suspect has been named by police and he steadfastly denies any involvement.
Earlier this year, a newspaper and a friend of the suspect filed separate FOI complaints against the police department, claiming they illegally withheld documents in the case.
The newspaper maintained that police opened the case file to a private investigator hired by Yale University, so it could not legally withhold it from reporters.
In April, Lt. Bryan Norwood, head of New Haven detectives, testified that his bureau did not open its files to the investigator.
According to state law, police can withhold documents if releasing them would disclose "the identity of witnesses not otherwise known whose safety would be endangered" or if the information would be "prejudicial" to a "prospective law enforcement action." A hearing officer reviewed more than 4,000 pages of documents before rendering her decision.
The newspaper did secure one victory, albeit an small one.
Included in the 4,000 pages are newspaper articles and Internet stories about the case and an internal memo about the FOI request. The hearing officer ruled those should have been released.
Jovin was stabbed 17 times in the back and neck in the city's exclusive East Rock neighborhood. She was found mortally wounded on a grassy strip between the road and sidewalk. An Ivy League senior with scientist parents in Germany, the case drew an onslaught of media attention.
Police maintain they have a "pool of suspects" but have named only one. James R. Van de Velde, a Yale lecturer and Jovin's thesis adviser, has consistently denied any involvement in the killing and has demanded police remove his name from the pool.
He has not been charged and now lives in Virginia.
©New Haven Register 2001
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