Clarion-Ledger seeks to unseal cases regarding Hinds DA
The case against Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith is a puzzle — the missing pieces of which may be hidden within sealed cases and hearings in Hinds County Circuit Court and the Mississippi Supreme Court.
The Clarion-Ledger is asking the courts to unseal those records.
RELATED: Mississippi Bar files complaint against DA Smith
Last month, the state attorney general’s office filed a six-count affidavit against Smith accusing him of aiding criminal defendants. The cases of those defendants, Christopher Butler and Darnell Turner, and other pertinent files are mostly inaccessible to the public.
The Clarion-Ledger has filed three petitions to access records the newspaper suggests were sealed improperly. One caveat is that, because the sealed cases and hearings go back months, even years, and are completely out of the public's view, determining what happened and what to ask for is like feeling around in a dark room.
The Clarion-Ledger's motions, filed Thursday, follow the courtroom battles between Smith and Hinds County Circuit Judge Jeff Weill stemming from the state attorney general’s allegations against the district attorney.
RELATED: Hinds DA spars with AG, judges and MBN
Investigations into Smith's courtroom activities began in other cases, like the one Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green agreed to seal at the attorney general's office request just before reassigning it. In that sealed case, an FBI agent with the last name of Culpepper testified against Smith on March 30 in Weill's courtroom.
In his request for the transcripts from that hearing, Smith's attorney, Jim Waide, called the testimony "exculpatory in nature and necessary to Smith's defense."
One of The Clarion-Ledger's motions suggests the hearing should not be sealed because it does not pertain to grand jury proceedings. In fact, The Clarion-Ledger's motion is now sealed as well since the entire case in which it is filed is sealed.
After Smith's arrest in June, Weill ordered Smith to be temporarily removed from his court docket and barred from participating in all Hinds County grand jury proceedings. In response to the order, which Hinds County Circuit Clerk Zack Wallace later sealed, Smith is asking the state Supreme Court to prevent Weill’s order from being enforced.
Days later, two additional motions appeared in the case, neither of which is public. Other court records refer to these filings, which include a petition filed by the attorney general's office to prevent Smith and his assistant district attorneys from attending grand jury proceedings.
The attorney general’s office’s motion goes beyond Weill’s initial order that was limited to Smith. Weill’s order states the district attorney staff may participate in grand jury proceedings unless they act with or on behalf of Smith.
“However, the assistant district attorneys are specifically cautioned that any grand jury action or proceeding must relate to a lawful grand jury investigation and not made to serve in retaliation, in any manner, for the district attorney’s recent criminal charges and arrest,” Weill’s order said.
Another motion filed by The Clarion-Ledger asks for these Supreme Court files.
Then there’s the administrative folder in which Weill files any orders not pertaining to a specific case with a case number. Among those filings is Weill's order temporarily removing Smith from participating on his court docket.
When Weill filed that order, the file was open. Days later, it was sealed.
“That’s my personal record keeping, and I wanted it sealed,” Wallace said, adding he sealed the records himself. “That’s what I wanted.”
This file is the subject of The Clarion-Ledger's third unsealing motion. When asked where that motion would be filed, Wallace replied, "Nowhere."
Wallace said the administrative file is open to the public, but anyone wishing to access what's inside must contact Wallace directly and ask him to unseal them. No other employees in the clerk's office have authority to unseal the records, which are public. Wallace said he took this step to prohibit attorneys from filing any motions in that folder.
Wallace also said he communicates with judges before unsealing their administrative orders, which are public.
“Without knowing the content of the sealed documents in this Court, the Petitioner cannot, of course, know whether those documents involve contemporaneous grand jury proceedings, but, if so, the procedures applied to create this “administrative file” were and are arbitrary and capricious and not conducted in accordance with existing law,” The Clarion-Ledger's motion states.
Aside from Weill's file, there are three additional so-called administrative folders accessible by the public only with Wallace's approval. Within the administrative files of the other Hinds County circuit judges — Bill Gowan, Winston Kidd and Tomie Green — are miscellaneous documents setting court reporter salaries, oaths of office and transcript fees.
But the folders also contain orders, some of which are sealed within already-sealed files. Green's folder contains a dozen sealed orders, and Gowan's contains four.
Each of the newspaper's motions to unseal records suggests the court sealed the documents improperly, without using the procedure set forth by the Mississippi Supreme Court in another case initiated by The Clarion-Ledger in 1990.
Before a case can be legally closed, the Supreme Court requires a hearing must be scheduled, with a 24-hour notice to the public and media. The press must be given a chance to protest the closure and a transcript of the closure hearing should be made public, among other requirements.
CL Order Unsealing Supreme Court Records
Contact Mollie Bryant at mbryant2@gannett.com or 601-961-7251 and Anna Wolfe at awolfe@gannett.com or 601-961-7326. Follow @MollieEBryant and @ayewolfe on Twitter.