Re: 11/2/02 - New Haven Register: Jovin file won't be opened to public
Jovin file won't be opened to public
William Kaempffer, Register Staff November 02, 2002
NEW HAVEN — In a decision filed Thursday, Judge George Levine concluded that the state Freedom of Information Commission violated its own rules in the case and, as a result, the judge voided the commission's order to open files in the 1998 slaying of Suzanne Jovin.
Levine indicated the FOIC decision earlier this year prejudiced the rights of police Chief Melvin H. Wearing and New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington.
"They did directly violate their own rules and didn't seem to care," said Assistant State's Attorney James Clark, who argued the case before Levine. "That seems particularly inappropriate for this commission, because they're supposed to be the open government people."
The debate dates back to last year, when the Hartford Courant and Jeffrey Mitchell, a private citizen interested in the case, filed FOI complaints against the police department for failing to provide access to the roughly 4,500 pages in the police file.
After an administrative hearing and reviewing the documents, an FOI hearing officer recommended the commission deny the complaint.
Instead, the commission assigned it to another hearing officer, Commissioner Dennis E. O'Connor, for a second look. That officer, in a strongly worded proposed decision, upbraided police and recommended much of the file be opened to the public. The full commission later adopted the decision.
Soon after, both the city and state's attorney's office appealed to Superior Court.
The key component from the city and prosecutor's perspectives was whether O'Connor had standing to make any decision. He didn't attend the initial hearing but based his decision, at least in part, on testimony from a police detective whom he believed was untruthful.
FOI regulations require that a hearing officer personally hear testimony if it is considered in the proposed decision.
Clark and Deputy Corporation Counsel Martin Echter argued that O'Connor violated that when he noted that the lone witness for the police department was "not credible."
The judge agreed with Echter and Clark and overturned the ruling, adding that "the court finds that the ability of the chief to identify and apprehend a suspect, and the ability to prosecute such a suspect, would be prejudiced by the disclosure, at this time, of the materials."
Mitchell, who is a friend of James Van De Velde, the only named suspect, and the Courant filed the FOI requests last year but Wearing rejected them because the investigation remained open. Both filed complaints with the FOIC, alleging that since police opened the file to a private investigator hired by Yale, detectives had to open it to them.
Lt. Bryan Norwood testified at the FOI hearing that police hadn't given access to the private detective.
Jovin was murdered in December 1998. The case remains unsolved.
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William Kaempffer can be reached at wkaempffer@nhregister.com , or at 789-7527.
©New Haven Register 2002
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