Archives for 2011

From the Associated Press

The Idaho Department of Correction says it will not allow media witnesses to view the entire execution of Paul Ezra Rhoades, and two separate groups are protesting the policy, the Associated Press reports. Rhoades is scheduled to die by lethal injection Friday, making him the first person to be executed under Idaho’s new lethal injection guidelines.

Prison officials say to maintain Rhoades’ dignity, they won’t allow witnesses to view him being restrained or having the IVs inserted. They also said changing the procedure now could be disruptive. But a group of Idaho news organizations say that policy conflicts with a 2002 federal court ruling that found the public, through the media, must be allowed to view executions in their entirety. The news organizations have asked the state to reconsider. Click below for a full report from AP reporter Rebecca Boone.

Idaho restricts witness access to execution

By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) ? The Idaho Department of Correction says it will not allow media witnesses to view the entire execution of Paul Ezra Rhoades, and two separate groups are protesting the policy.
Rhoades is scheduled to die by lethal injection Friday, making him the first person to be executed under Idaho’s new lethal injection guidelines.

Prison officials say to maintain Rhoades’ dignity, they won’t allow witnesses to view him being restrained or having the IVs inserted. They also said changing the procedure now could be disruptive.
But a group of Idaho news organizations say that policy conflicts with a 2002 federal court ruling that found the public, through the media, must be allowed to view executions in their entirety. The news organizations have asked the state to reconsider.

In a separate effort, the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho is also protesting the restricted access. The ACLU contends that if the execution can’t be carried out in compliance with federal court rulings, it must be postponed.

Rhoades was sentenced to death for the 1987 kidnappings and murders of 34-year-old Idaho Falls teacher Susan Michelbacher and 21-year-old newlywed and Blackfoot convenience store clerk Stacy Dawn Baldwin. He was also sentenced to life in prison for the 1987 murder of 20-year-old Idaho Falls convenience store clerk Nolan Haddon.

The Associated Press first learned late last week that the Department of Correction intended to restrict witness viewing to after the IVs were inserted. The organization asked department director Brent Reinke to allow the media to view the entire execution process. On Tuesday, Correction Department spokesman Jeff Ray said the state had considered the request but decided against it.

“The procedures were developed so that we would preserve the dignity of the offender,” Ray said in an email to the AP. “After discussing the matter with Director Reinke and legal counsel we have chosen to follow the procedures as they are written.”

The AP then joined with the Idaho Press Club, the Newspaper Association of Idaho, the Idaho State Broadcasters Association, The Post Register, the Blackfoot Morning News, the Idaho State Journal, the Idaho Statesman, the Idaho Press-Tribune and the Lewiston Morning Tribune to formally urge the department to reconsider. In a letter to Reinke and state attorneys, the news organizations’ attorney, Charles Brown, pointed out that the public holds a First Amendment right to view all aspects of the execution.

Brown noted a 9th U.S. Circuit Court ruling arising out of a lawsuit between the First Amendment Coalition and Jeanne Woodford, the warden of San Quentin prison in California. The federal appeals court found that allowing the public to view executions, through the media, plays a significant role in the functioning of capital punishment.

“To determine whether lethal injection executions are fairly and humanely administered, or whether they ever can be, citizens must have reliable information about the ‘initial procedures’ which are invasive, possibly painful and may give rise to serious complications,” the 9th Circuit wrote in that opinion.

Wednesday evening, Reinke sent a formal response, again declining to allow the media witnesses to view the full execution.

“The changes you requested at this late hour to IDOC’s execution procedures would have a potentially disruptive effect on the entire process. Among other things, it could compromise the anonymity of members of IDOC’s execution team,” Reinke wrote in the email.

The director said his department was aware of the 9th Circuit’s ruling but contended it was based on facts unique to California.

“In the months to come we shall review every aspect of Friday’s execution. As we do, we shall welcome your clients’ input on how we can improve this process,” Reinke wrote.

The 9th Circuit ruling addressed California prison officials’ concerns that allowing viewing of the entire execution in that state would allow reporters to figure out the identity of execution teams. In that case, the court found that surgical garb including facemasks could effectively conceal the identities of the team, and the judges noted that even if media witnesses were kept out of the room until the execution team left the area, a condemned inmate could easily reveal their identities by giving their names in his final statement.

In its separate effort, the ACLU of Idaho sent a letter to the Idaho Department of Correction on Tuesday citing the same 9th Circuit case. The letter said the “initial procedures,” such as bringing a condemned inmate into a death chamber, strapping him or her down and inserting IVs, are “inextricably intertwined with the process of putting the condemned inmate to death.”

In the letter, ACLU of Idaho staff attorney Lea Cooper called on the department to postpone all executions until they can “be brought in line with existing federal law.”

“The First Amendment rights of prisoners and of the public cannot be sacrificed at the whim of IDOC or any persons involved in administering executions,” the ACLU wrote.

It was unclear late Wednesday whether the ACLU or the news organizations planned to take further action, such as a filing a lawsuit, to challenge the Correction Department’s policy.

From the Associated Press

Op-ed from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

When residents of U.S. Highway 12 started hearing rumors about giant megaloads rolling past their homes, they found out what was really going on by filing public records requests.

When a state senator wouldn’t talk about his DUI arrest after he was found in a stolen jacknifed SUV and trailer, the public records did the talking for him, and the whole story came out.

When new legislative district lines were drawn this year, public records requests yielded information that showed people what direct impact the new lines would have on their representation: Which incumbents landed in the same districts and would have to face off for a chance to remain in office.

And reporters around the state have been combing through thousands of public records about the former University of Idaho professor, Ernesto Bustamante, who shot a graduate student to death and then killed himself, trying to help people make sense of how it happened and how the university dealt with the events leading up to the tragedy.

All these things were possible because laws protect citizens’ rights to know what’s going on in the government they fund with their tax dollars and participate in with their votes. In Idaho, the Idaho Open Meeting Law and Idaho Public Records Law play key roles in ensuring that our government remains open to us. Best case: An open government, supervised by an informed and engaged citizenry. That’s how we get government of, by and for the people.

All are invited to a one-day symposium on Nov. 9 entitled “Open Access: Citizens, Media & Government,” sponsored by the University of Idaho School of Journalism and Mass Media, with support from the McClure Center for Public Policy Research and the Society of Professional Journalists.

A new documentary film by UI students Hans Guske and Ilya Pinchuck, “Fighting Goliath: Megaloads & the Power of Protest,” will debut at 3 p.m.; a panel including megaloads opponents Lin Laughy and Borg Hendrickson, Lewiston Tribune reporter William Spence and myself will discuss “In the Sunshine: Holding Government Accountable” from 4-5 p.m.; and I’ll give a lecture entitled “Open Government: Why it Matters” at 7 p.m. in Room 106 of the Iddings Agricultural Sciences Building on the corner of Rayburn and Sixth streets; a reception will follow.

There’s more: In December, Idahoans for Openness in Government, known as IDOG, will bring Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to town for a seminar on exactly what is, and isn’t, covered by the open meeting and public records laws and how everyone can comply with them. That seminar, co-sponsored by this newspaper, will be Dec. 7 from 6-8:30 p.m. at Moscow City Hall in the city council chambers; like the UI’s symposium, it is free and open to the public. Local and state government officials and their staffers, reporters, and interested citizens all are invited.

Sure, as a reporter who covers state government, open government makes it easier – possible, really – for me to do my job. But it also does more than that: It enables all of us to be informed, effective participants in what happens in our public life – and that matters.

Betsy Z. Russell is a Boise-based reporter for The Spokesman-Review, and is president of the Idaho Press Club and president and a founding board member of IDOG.

Op-ed from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

From the Associated Press

From the Lewiston Tribune

MOSCOW — The employment records of former University of Idaho psychology professor Ernesto Bustamante will be released Wednesday, two months after he killed graduate student Katy Benoit.

UI President Duane Nellis will discuss the records at a 1 p.m. news conference at the Student Union Building.

A judge cleared the way Oct. 3 for the release of Bustamante’s records after several news organizations including the Idaho Statesman, the Lewiston Tribune, the Spokesman-Review and the Associated Press filed formal requests for their release.

In his ruling, 2nd District Judge John R. Stegner cited an overriding public interest in disclosing the documents to allow people to make their own judgments about how the university handled the Benoit case.

Bustamante shot Benoit Aug. 22 at her off-campus residence three days after he resigned from the university, then killed himself early the next morning.

Benoit had been in a romantic relationship with Bustamante, but filed a sexual harassment complaint with the university after he made several violent threats against her.

The UI already has released Benoit’s student records, which included a detailed timeline of the events and actions around her case. A similar timeline is expected to be included in Wednesday’s release.

The Bustamante records may reveal the nature of his resignation, whether other students filed complaints against him, whether the university knew about his apparent mental health issues and whether it knew that he reportedly carried concealed weapons on campus.

From the Lewiston Tribune

Editorial from the Idaho Statesman

Ernesto Bustamante left in his wake a premeditated and violent crime.

And a voluminous virtual paper trail: an estimated 70,000 emails over the course of four years teaching psychology at the University of Idaho.

These documents may answer the most nagging questions about Bustamante, the assistant professor who left the U of I’s staff on Aug. 19, murdered Boise native and U of I graduate student Katy Benoit on Aug. 22, and turned a gun on himself on Aug. 23.

These documents may reveal what U of I administrators knew — and when they knew it:

* Did Bustamante have affairs with other U of I students, aside from Benoit? Since sexual relationships between faculty and students violate university policy, was Bustamante disciplined?

* When did the U of I know that Bustamante had threatened Benoit with a gun on numerous occasions following their breakup? And since Bustamante was still on the payroll at the time, did he face disciplinary action?

* Were U of I officials aware of Bustamante’s mental condition — his multiple personalities, including one he called a “psychopathic killer” and one he named “the beast”? Did they know that Bustamante openly discussed his mental conditions with his students?

The public deserves answers. Every student who attends the U of I, every parent contemplating sending a son or daughter to the Moscow campus, has an unyielding right to know. (In the interest of full disclosure, Editorial Page Editor Kevin Richert’s oldest son is a U of I student, and he took a class from Bustamante.)

These answers may indeed cast the U of I in a negative light. The Bustamante e-mails may raise a new and troubling set of questions about due diligence, about red flags unheeded.

The facts may be revealed, in the weeks ahead, because of a ruling in a Moscow courtroom Monday. District Judge John R. Stegner authorized the release of the e-mails. Media outlets, including the Statesman, sought their release. Significantly, so did the U of I — the entity that has the most to lose from their release.

The university says it will release the records as soon as possible. Clearly, full and prompt disclosure is in the university’s best interest.

Stegner ruled on a narrow ambiguity in the law: Does a public employee’s right to privacy live on after death? Common sense rendered this one an easy call. The public interest clearly overrides the privacy concerns of a deceased public employee.

Stegner’s broader message transcends the issue at hand. Under state sunshine laws, government records are presumed to be open. Disclosure is the default position. Said Stegner, according to the Lewiston Tribune: “The overriding purpose of the (public records law) is to foster openness in government.”

A good reminder.

Editorial from the Idaho Statesman

From Eye on Boise/The Spokesman-Review

2nd District Judge John Stegner has ordered the personnel records of former UI Professor Ernesto Bustamante released, in a court case in which the University of Idaho and media organizations from across the state appealed to the court to see if privacy protections for state personnel records persist after the employee is dead; Bustamante shot himself to death after police say he fatally shot UI student Katy Benoit outside her Moscow home. “This provides us with what we sought: a clear path forward,” University of Idaho general counsel Kent Nelson said in a statement. “It has always been the university’s intention to be as open and transparent as the law allows in this matter.” Click below for a full report from the Lewiston Tribune and the Associated Press.

Judge Stegner, ruling from the bench, held that the definition of “former official” does include one who is dead, but then applied a balancing test and ordered disclosure of the records, determining that the public’s right to know outweighed the privacy right of the “former official.” The UI doesn’t plan to appeal the ruling, which sets precedent for such cases in the future.

Idaho judge orders release of professor’s records

MOSCOW, Idaho (AP) — A judge has ruled the University of Idaho should release the personnel records of a former professor who police say killed a 22-year-old graduate student and then committed suicide after their relationship ended.

The Lewiston Tribune reports (https://bit.ly/nZ8xCn ) 2nd District Judge John R. Stegner ordered the records of Ernesto Bustamante released on Monday.

In his ruling, Stegner decided the mandatory confidentiality of public employee personnel records ends with the death of the individual.

Bustamante resigned from the university three days before police say he shot Katy Benoit nearly a dozen times outside her Moscow home on Aug. 22 and then committed suicide in a hotel room.

Attorneys for the University of Idaho and several media outlets petitioned the court to rule that the former professor’s records were a matter of public record.

The university said it was discussing a timeline to release public material with lawyers for the media outlets that include The Associated Press, Idaho newspapers and the Idaho Press Club.

“This provides us with what we sought: a clear path forward,” University of Idaho general counsel Kent Nelson said in a statement. “It has always been the university’s intention to be as open and transparent as the law allows in this matter.”

Nelson added that the university is currently complying with a search warrant from the district court as the law enforcement investigation into the deaths continues. Under the warrant, the institution is gathering and turning over university documents related to Bustamante and Benoit.

As the university makes this material available to law enforcement officials, it said it is also making copies of the records in response to public records requests from media outlets.

The records including emails number “in the tens of thousands,” Nelson said.

From Eye on Boise/The Spokesman-Review

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

By Katie Roenigk

According to the University of Idaho’s Office of General Counsel, there is one question to answer when determining whether Ernesto Bustamante’s personnel records should be released, and it concerns the phrase “former public official.” According to Idaho Code, the privacy of public officials remains intact even after they have left office. The question is whether privacy laws still cover a person once he or she is dead.

In First Amendment attorney Chuck Brown’s opinion, the privacy of the deceased is not protected. He said as much in a response brief filed Thursday in Latah County’s 2nd District Court.

Brown’s filing, along with one submitted Thursday by the University of Idaho, will be considered by Judge John Stegner, who will decide whether Bustamante’s records should be released.

Bustamante, who until Aug. 19 was employed at the UI, took his own life after a police standoff Aug. 23. He killed university graduate student Kathryn Benoit the previous evening.

In his brief, Brown wrote that Idaho’s statute does not contemplate protecting the records of a deceased person. In fact, he said that protection would bring up a “panoply” of issues related to the work of historians in later years, for example.

“Is the nondisclosure aspect applicable for 12 hours, 20 years, or 1,000 years?” Brown asked. “The statute is solely contemplating a public official who is alive. (Furthermore) the statute makes it clear that if there is any doubt (then) disclosure is contemplated and preferred.”

In a brief filed last week, he referred to the fact that Idaho Code requires written consent from a former employee to divulge private information.

“Thus, the statute itself is contemplating that ‘former’ must relate to a living person who has the discretion and ability to sign a written consent,” Brown wrote.

If the statute were to extend to a deceased person, the Legislature would have written it “to include representatives of the deceased’s estate,” he said.

Another of Brown’s main claims is that Bustamante surrendered any right to privacy when he murdered Benoit.

“Mr. Bustamante’s actions have totally divested him of any privacy rights enjoyed by a public official,” Brown wrote.

He quoted from the Idaho Public Records Law in writing that he and others requesting Bustamante’s personnel records seek to examine the information to “determine whether those entrusted with the affairs of government are honestly, faithfully and competently performing their functions as public servants.”

“What was the ‘governmental activity’ that took place in regard to protecting the health and well-being of a student from a ‘government official’ in its employ?” Brown wrote. “It is very clear that the acts or actions taken or not taken by the University in this entire situation should be viewed in the light of day. When the doors are shut, the worse is suspected. When the light of day floods through, everyone can gauge for themselves.”

According to a complaint filed by Benoit with the university in June, she entered a sexual relationship with Bustamante that began in fall 2010 while she was enrolled in one of his classes. The relationship apparently ended in mid-May after the former psychology professor put a gun to Benoit’s head. The UI has stated Bustamante’s employment ended at the university on Aug. 19.

Between the time of Benoit’s complaint and death, UI officials had been in contact with Benoit and Bustamante, who filed his own complaint against Benoit for defamation of character in July, according to UI and police documents.

The university has not confirmed what happened during those meetings, nor have they released information about any other sexual harassment complaints that may have been filed against Bustamante. Officials will not say whether the university was aware of Bustamante’s mental illness — sources close to him say he had multiple personality disorder — and whether Bustamante’s cessation of employment was due to Benoit’s complaint and investigation by the UI

The university has expressed its desire to release the personnel records, but officials have asked Stegner to determine if Idaho Code protects Bustamante’s right to privacy now that he is dead.

“There are arguments on either side of whether disclosure of the personnel information of the deceased employee … is appropriate,” UI’s general counsel wrote Thursday. “(We) ask this court to declare the meaning of the term ‘former public official.'”

The university in its brief supplied information about several cases in Idaho and throughout the country dealing with similar privacy issues. Many of the examples resulted in contradictory conclusions, though one case in Idaho indicated that the state considers common law privacy rights to end at death. In another situation, the person’s heirs inherit the right to divulge his or her private information.

Stegner will hear oral arguments from the UI and Brown on Monday, Oct 3.

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

From the Idaho Press-Tribune

CANYON COUNTY — A local history committee has taken on the task of consolidating Canyon County records that date back almost 30 years before it officially became a county in 1892.

But these records have been spread out in six different locations and haven’t always been cared for properly, resulting in the loss of little pieces of history.

To prevent this destruction, and to take inventory of what records the county has on hand, three people have headed up a committee to gather up all the documents and store them at the courthouse.

“We really want to get our documents out of rented storage with no temperature control, and the dust blows through the door, and it’s not a good environment,” said County Clerk Chris Yamamoto, who started the Historic Records Retention Committee with Nampa Historic Preservation Commission’s Joe Bell and former chief deputy and county controller Chris Harris.

But it’s not an easy task.

“It all takes time, and it all takes money, … money that we just don’t have a budget for,” Yamamoto said. “So we’re looking to figure out who’s going to do it and how we’re going to pay for it.”

Government grants may be part of the answer, he said. Beyond that, the committee is being as frugal as possible.

For example, the county will renovate the fourth floor of the jail, which previously closed down because it was too expensive to maintain, and use it for document storage. Yamamoto already got free shelving for the storage area when a company moved and left the shelves behind.

“We’re getting this storage at a very low cost,” Yamamoto said, noting it will save clerks a lot of time by eliminating trips to find documents at an off-site storage location.

The next step is to organize the collection and make it more accessible to the public by digitizing it — a slow process that has to be done step by step as the money comes in, Yamamoto said.

Whether you’re a fourth-grader working on a school project or a genealogist, you deserve to be able to dig through your county’s historic records, Bell said.

“What I like about the data is it’s the people of Canyon County,” he said. “This is our story, it belongs to us.”

The committee will continue to organize the space in the courthouse to make the most of it, and hopes to move documents into the new storage area by early 2012.

“I’ve always been interested in history, but the older you get, the more important it becomes,” Yamamoto said.

From the Idaho Press-Tribune

Editorial from the Lewiston Tribune

By Marty Trillhaase |

Ernesto Bustamante was licensed to carry a concealed firearm in the state of Idaho.

Nobody’s claiming that had anything to do with the former University of Idaho assistant psychology professor shooting down his former lover and student, Katy Benoit, on Aug. 22 before he committed suicide about nine hours later in a Moscow motel room.

But the incident does reveal something disturbing: Not only can virtually anybody in Idaho get such a permit, but when he does, it’s none of your business.

Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch acknowledged issuing Bustamante a concealed weapons permit because he cleared a background check. Bustamante had no felony conviction. He had not been adjudicated mentally ill. He was not wanted by the law. He was not a drug addict. Obviously, Bustamante did not check yes to any of the questions that might have disqualified him:

“Lacking mental capacity.”
“Mentally ill.”
“Gravely disabled.”
” Incapacitated.”

“I’m somewhat amused by the fact that what always seems to come to the fore is whether or not someone had a CWP as if that (not issuing him a permit) would have somehow prevented the guy from doing this thing,” Rausch told the Tribune’s David Johnson.

But when the Tribune filed a public records request to examine the document, it was denied. Idaho’s lawmakers decided the fact that someone had a CWP should be exempt from Idaho’s public records law.

In Idaho, your driver’s license is a public record. So is your car registration. Also a matter of public record is what real estate you own and what it’s worth for taxing purposes – as is whether you are current on your property taxes.

The same once was true for concealed weapon permits. When former Lewiston Democratic Sen. Bruce Sweeney helped grant ordinary Idahoans access to a concealed weapon permit in 1990, his bill provided public disclosure.

Go ahead and get a permit, but your neighbors had a right to know if you had one. In fact, it became common for Idaho newspapers to occasionally publish a list of people authorized to conceal and carry firearms.

Openness established equilibrium and accountability. Say, for the sake of argument, a university professor startles his students by announcing he suffers from multiple personalities with names such as “the beast” and the “psychopathic killer.” Now just assume one of those students is curious enough to file a public records request, learns that this apparently unstable professor is licensed to carry a weapon clandestinely and alerts either law enforcement or the university administration about his concerns.

Today’s law makes that absolutely impossible. In 1995, lawmakers pulled the weapons permit outside Idaho’s public records act. Twice since, they have updated the law – the last time in 2009 they did so unanimously.

What’s the sense of having a concealed weapons law if everybody knows who has a concealed weapon, lawmakers asked.

Just this: With public access, you can scrutinize the system and the people running it – and then decide whether it needs fixing.

If you see an elderly driver involved in an accident, you can evaluate whether Idaho should have issued him a license – or whether the law ought to change.

If a contractor defrauds a client, you can look into whether Idaho’s contractor licensing law is sufficiently stringent.

When someone in Idaho obtains a permit to carry a concealed weapon, however, you’ll just have to take law enforcement’s word that the system works. – M.T.

Editorial from the Lewiston Tribune

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

By Brandon Macz

The University of Idaho sought a court’s opinion Monday on whether it can release employment records for former assistant professor Ernesto Bustamante, who killed a graduate student and then himself, last week.

Specifically, the UI regents filed a motion for declaratory relief in Latah County 2nd District Court.

The motion was made as a cooperative effort between the university and media outlets the Idaho Statesman and TPC Holdings, which publishes the Lewiston Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News. These and several other media outlets have expressed an interest in employment records regarding Bustamante.

He once had a relationship with UI psychology graduate student Katy Benoit, 22, who was shot to death on the porch of her Lilly Street residence Aug. 22. He took his own life hours later in a room at the nearby University Inn-Best Western.

Idaho Code prevents the university from releasing certain personnel information for former employees — in this case grievances and complaints like the one Benoit filed against Bustamante in June — without the employee’s consent. The university, enlisting TPC Holdings and the Statesman as defendants in the matter, is seeking legal judgment to determine if the Idaho statute applies to employees who are dead and, therefore, cannot give consent.

“This is an unusual request, because it asks the court to resolve an issue before a complaint is ever filed,” said Kent Nelson, UI general counsel, in a statement released Monday. “It’s fitting in that we want to provide a timely accounting for the public within the bounds of the law.”

The university also filed Monday a motion for a speedy hearing to expedite a judge’s decision on the matter.

The issue was raised, according to the motion, when a Tribune reporter filed a public records request with the UI on Wednesday seeking “emails, correspondence and reports” involving UI officials and how they handled the June sexual harassment complaint filed by Benoit against Bustamante. The UI had until Monday to grant or deny the request, and until Sept. 8 to provide the requested information had they approved its release. The university has since asked media agencies to join in its motion for declaratory relief to provide as much disclosure as legally possible.

“It’s a cooperative effort,” said Nathan Alford, Tribune and Daily News publisher. “We’re pleased that the Daily News’ sister paper, the Tribune, provided a public records request that gives the university grounds to pursue this declaratory opinion. The university’s cooperation in clarifying our request for more information is appreciated. They could have waited until we filed a complaint against the university, but instead they chose to cooperate and seek a more timely and efficient opinion from the local court.”

After receiving an opinion from the U.S. Department of Education, the university on Friday released a timeline of its contact with Benoit following her June 12 written complaint. It states she met Bustamante while taking his Psychology 218 course in fall 2010, which developed into a sexual relationship over the course of the semester.

The relationship deteriorated in May following several incidents, Benoit told the UI, where she had been threatened by Bustamante with violence, and he “held a gun to her head and detailed the manner in which he would use it.”

University officials have yet to confirm if he resigned or was terminated effective Aug. 19 following Benoit’s complaint.

Alford said other daily newspapers are working with TPC Holdings and the Statesman with the expectation they might join in the legal action.

“The idea is to share that (court) cost among those with similar interest in obtaining more information for the public,” Alford said. “We’re hopeful there’s something to be learned by sharing more information with the public and the university community about this unimaginable event.”

Brandon Macz can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 238, or by email to bmacz@dnews.com.

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(c)2011 the Moscow-Pullman Daily News (Moscow, Idaho)

Visit the Moscow-Pullman Daily News (Moscow, Idaho) at www.dnews.com

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News