Senate bill would hurt victims, kill public oversight

In a troubling case of “we’re from the government and we’re here to help,” Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque, wants to shield significant portions of police reports for six serious crimes from public view.

Considering how too many of New Mexico’s law enforcement, prosecutorial and court systems are struggling to take predators of all kinds off the street — and how concerned residents are with crime — how can eliminating the sunshine of public oversight be a remotely good idea?

Especially when it comes to cases of sexual assault and rape, which have proved to be a major embarrassment to the University of New Mexico exactly because this information was not secret?

The latest version of the legislation Candelaria is proposing would amend the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act to allow law enforcement agencies to keep secret anything in the reports that would reveal the identity of victims or non-law enforcement witnesses to six crimes, including rape and stalking — even after charges are filed.

Candelaria’s Senate Bill 149 preys on the desire of all New Mexicans to protect crime victims, yet as written is instead a dangerous assault on public oversight of our criminal justice system. Even as amended it would destroy the ability to not only report on but follow through the system allegations of assault with intent to commit criminal sexual penetration, assault against a household member with intent to commit criminal sexual penetration, stalking, aggravated stalking, criminal sexual penetration and criminal sexual contact.

There won’t be much public outrage or pressure to solve crimes or keep people safe when the public essentially is kept in the dark. Indeed, a strong case could be made that it is the kind of secrecy promoted by Candelaria’s bill that kept so many in the dark about long-lived problems at Penn State and Baylor before details of repeated assaults finally emerged.

State law has confusing language that seems to exempt the identification of persons accused of — but not charged with — a crime from disclosure. Candelaria therefore reasons that alleged victims and certain witnesses should be afforded the same anonymity.

But there is a compelling argument that the provision cited by Candelaria doesn’t apply to hiding the accused’s identity in initial police reports (which are treated as “original records of entry” and are always public).

And, in fact, the general practice followed by law enforcement agencies is not to shield the identity of individuals who are accused of crimes.

Expanding the limited exceptions to the open records law to include victims — meaning accusers — and witnesses — as well as any information that could possibly hint at their identities — would render public versions of police reports virtually void of meaningful information.

Without that transparency, it is more difficult to tell whether a subsequent investigation and prosecution is thorough and fair — or not.

And that has the potential to damage the fight against sexual assault by shielding important law enforcement work from public scrutiny.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gregory P. Williams, president of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government’s board, says the bill “would significantly harm the ability of the media to report on violent crime in New Mexico, which in turn keeps the public less informed on issues of law enforcement and crime in our communities.”

No one wants to add to the pain endured by rape victims. But there are ways for the Legislature to help rather than hurt victims’ pursuit of justice — such as finally tackling the terrible backlog in untested evidence kits, which at more than 5,000 is the worst per capita rate in the nation.

— Albuquerque Journal