ST. CLOUD – Allowing some 200 pages from the Jacob Wetterling investigative file to be shielded from public view would be an "extraordinary" extension of constitutional privacy rights, a lawyer for media and open government groups said in a Stearns County courtroom Friday.
In the first public hearing on access to the county's investigative file in the 1989 abduction case, lawyer Mark Anfinson argued that the entire county file be open and that District Judge Ann Carrott allow media groups to "intervene" in a lawsuit filed by the Wetterling family to keep some documents private.
If the judge agrees, Anfinson plans to argue that barring the release of some documents would strain the state Constitution's privacy rights.
That's the core concern of the groups Anfinson represents, led by the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information.
"Our principal concern is the court recognizing a privacy right that overrides the Data Practices Act," Anfinson said, referring to the laws that provide public access to government data.
Jerry and Patty Wetterling, Jacob's parents, filed a lawsuit in June to stop the release of portions of the Stearns County investigative file that was opened when their son was kidnapped. The case and the file were closed last year when Jacob's killer confessed to abducting and shooting the boy and burying his remains in a pasture near Paynesville, Minn.
Attorney Doug Kelley, who represents the Wetterlings, has argued that about 200 pages of the file are intensely private and personal, that they are unrelated to the investigation and that they should not be released.
Although the point in question Friday was whether Carrott should allow the media to intervene and make its case in the lawsuit, the discussion waded into the legal merits and methodology for the underlying issue of the family's privacy.
