The Attorney General of Louisiana has sued a reporter for requesting sexual harassment records. Nutty.
This probably violates Louisiana's anti-SLAPP law.
La. Code Civ. Proc. Ann. art. 971(A)(1) (2018).
But this Louisiana Attorney General has a lot to hide.
Reminds me of our supercilious St. Johns County School Board members and their somnambulistic $200,000 year sinecure-holder, a rather poor excuse for an "education lawyer," Frank D. Upchurch, III, who sued Jeffrey Marcus Gray in retaliation for his records requests.
From Washington Post:
‘Intimidation measure’: Louisiana AG criticized for suing reporter over records request
Jeff Landry speaks in Baton Rouge, La., in 2015. Landry has served as Louisiana's attorney general since 2016. (Melinda Deslatte/AP)
By
Hannah Knowles
Feb. 7, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. UTC
At first, Andrea Gallo’s quest for sexual harassment complaints against a top state justice official seemed like a typical public records battle. The investigative reporter heard a common refrain from agencies withholding information: There was an “ongoing investigation.”
“The records should be ready and released to you by early next week,” officials eventually told Gallo on Jan. 22, a few days after she reported the criminal division head of the Louisiana attorney general’s office had his pay docked for participating in “inappropriate” conversations.
Then the attorney general’s office came back with new arguments — and a lawsuit.
“You have demanded information which will compromise the rights of our employees and could lead to litigation over the violation of those rights,” staff for Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) wrote Friday in a letter to Gallo, a 28-year-old reporter at the Advocate and the Times-Picayune.
The letter added: “Allegations of sexual harassment that turn out to be unsupported, inaccurate and unfounded can destroy marriages, damage employee’s children, wreck families and ruin reputations.”
Libby Casey talks to investigative reporter Kimbriell Kelly and database editor Steven Rich about FOIA and open records laws. (The Washington Post)
The lawsuit against Gallo asks a judge to weigh in against disclosure and requests that the defendant pay any legal fees, alarming journalists and experts in press law who called the move a threat to government transparency and accountability. Peter Kovacs, the Advocate’s editor, said he fears a “chill” on ordinary citizens’ ability to get answers from those in power.
“If a citizen filed a public records request and then was sued and had to pay the legal fees of the agency that requested it, you would have a lot less citizens feeling comfortable filing public records requests,” he said. “It becomes an intimidation measure that promotes government secrecy.”
“It should matter to every citizen of Louisiana who might become the target of the might of their government,” he said in an interview.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did the official who was sanctioned, Patrick Magee. Magee, who has led the criminal division since 2018, does not appear to have commented publicly on the allegations against him.
The lawsuit argues that the documents Gallo seeks contain “private information that is constitutionally protected from disclosure.” In a Jan. 28 response to Gallo’s request — for sexual harassment allegations against Magee as well as records showing how they were handled — officials shared some documents but said they could not provide “the initial complaint.”
The suit also cites department policies on the confidentiality of employees’ complaints and says redactions to protect privacy “would result in a meaningless document.” It also says agencies would struggle to fight sexual harassment if staff feared their grievances will become public.
“Publication and/or disclosure of such detailed, personal accounts may embarrass or humiliate the complainant, accused, witnesses and anyone else involved,” the suit states.
Gallo was running up against a deadline Friday afternoon when an email subject line caught her eye: “Landry v. Gallo, 19th JDC, State of Louisiana.”
It was stunning, she said — “but I didn’t totally have time to process it, because I kept thinking, I’ve got to finish this LSU story.” She kept working. Her editor scrambled to cover the lawsuit.
She put in her records request in December when Magee went on administrative leave for unspecified reasons. Declining to share documents, staff with the attorney general’s office said in December and January that their need for secrecy was temporary — the investigation was not yet complete.
Then, one day in January, Gallo called the attorney general’s office and asked to speak with Magee, she said. Someone said Magee was out for lunch.
It seemed to Gallo that the investigation was over.
The attorney general’s office released a letter with its findings: Magee had participated in conversations with “sexual slang” and “unprofessional comments” about the appearance of employees, Gallo reported for the Advocate. He would lose more than $20,000 of his salary, the letter said.
“Once I got that, I was like … ‘where are my records?’ ” Gallo said.
She said she feels lucky to be part of a newsroom that can afford a lawyer, encouraged by a deluge of support online and alarmed the attorney general would push back so forcefully.
“It is concerning because asking for public records from government agencies and government officials is part of the bread and butter of the journalism that we do,” she said.
Government lawsuits over public records requests are not unheard of, and some worry they are part of a trend. Reacting Saturday to the lawsuit on Twitter, University of Georgia media law professor Jonathan Peters said he believes these kinds of suits have been on the rise in the past decade.
He pointed to other examples: a university’s suit against its student newspaper, an education department’s suit against a nonprofit that sought enrollment data.
“Government officials generally claim that these actions are initiated in good faith and that it is prudent for courts to step in immediately if an agency’s disclosure obligations are unclear,” he said. “But suing record requesters is unwise, democratically dangerous, and usually unlawful.”
Kovacs was more taken aback. He said he has never seen such a lawsuit over 40 years in the business.
The attorney general’s move seemed to many journalists like one more reason the Advocate should keep digging.
“I would assume they have something to hide,” Kovacs said. “But I always assume that of politicians.”
---
From Advocate via Editor and Publisher Magazine:
Attorney General Jeff Landry sues Advocate reporter over public-records request
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry's office on Friday sued Andrea Gallo, a reporter for The Advocate and The Times-Picayune, over a public records request Gallo filed in December.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry on Friday sued a reporter for The Advocate and The Times-Picayune over a public-records request she filed, asking a judge to issue a declaratory judgment denying the request and seal the proceedings.
The unusual action came a few days after the newspaper warned Landry that it intended to sue him if he didn’t turn over the requested records.
“In my 40 years as an editor, I’ve never seen a journalist get sued for requesting a public record,” said Peter Kovacs, the newspaper’s editor. “We’re not intimidated. In fact, we’re more determined.”
The matter dates to Dec. 14, when the reporter, Andrea Gallo, first filed a public records request with Landry’s office seeking copies of sexual harassment complaints against Pat Magee, the head of the office’s criminal division, and records of how the complaints were handled. Magee was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation that day.
"The only complaints against Mr. Magee are part of the ongoing investigation," Landry's office responded at the time. "As long as the investigation is still open, the records are considered confidential and cannot be disclosed at the moment. Once the investigation has been officially closed, the records will be available for review."
On Jan. 4, attorneys in Landry's office reiterated that their reasoning for withholding the documents was "temporary and not permanent and we will make the appropriate documents available once the investigation is over."
Landry’s office hired lawyer Vicki Crochet of the firm Taylor Porter to conduct the investigation.
Magee returned to work Jan. 19 after an investigation found that he had "engaged in inappropriate verbal conversations," used sexual slang and made unprofessional comments over the appearance of employees. Landry's office ordered Magee to take a one-time $20,559 salary reduction and directed him to take courses on workplace professionalism and conflict management.
On Jan. 22, Landry's office said the newspaper would receive the requested records within the next week. But soon after, the attorney general sounded a different message.
His lawyers said they had located the complaint filed against Magee, but that they would not release it publicly. Rather than relying on an exemption in the state public records law, Landry's lawyers said they were withholding the complaint because of a constitutional right to privacy and policies within the Attorney General's office and state Civil Service that call for confidentiality in such investigations.
The newspaper offered to make concessions for privacy interests.
"We would invite redaction of the initial complaint to protect the identity of the victim, but that is the only privacy interest even arguably applicable," attorney Scott Sternberg, who represents The Advocate and The Times-Picayune, told Landry's office in a Feb. 2 letter.
Sternberg also argued that Louisiana Civil Service guidance is not an exception to public records law.
Landry's office did not respond to Sternberg’s letter, which threatened legal action, until Friday’s filing.
“You have demanded information which will compromise the rights of our employees and could lead to litigation over the violation of those rights,” Landry’s attorneys wrote in a letter on Friday to Gallo. “Allegations of sexual harassment that turn out to be unsupported, inaccurate and unfounded can destroy marriages, damage employee’s children, wreck families and ruin reputations.”
Sternberg expressed surprise at the attorney general’s actions but said he’s confident the newspaper will prevail.
"Mr. Landry is using taxpayer dollars and the power of his office to punish a citizen for demanding public records about public employees,” Sternberg said. “His office's actions are a perversion of the law and the system. We stand behind the request, and believe the judge will agree with Ms. Gallo that Mr. Landry's actions are arbitrary and capricious."
No comments:
Post a Comment