St. Louis, November 22, 2002: Today, Cole County Circuit Judge
Thomas J. Brown III will preside over a hearing concerning whether
the Department of Corrections must make public the procedures
used for executing individuals sentenced to the death penalty.
The case involves an open records request made by St. Louis
attorney Cheryl Rafert under Missouri's Sunshine Law. Rafert's
request was denied by the state.
Rafert has been working since August 2000 to lift the veil of
secrecy surrounding Missouri's capital punishment procedures. Her
simple request for a copy of the Execution Protocol was initially
denied outright by the state for "safety and security reasons." After
Rafert argued that the procedures were a public record under
Missouri's Sunshine Law, the Department provided Rafert with a
redacted copy consisting of thirteen (13) of the approximately
seventy-six (76) page protocol.
After haggling with the Department for well over a year, Rafert
turned to the ACLU of Eastern Missouri for help.
"Our government derives its legitimacy from the fact that its
processes are open to the public," reads the ACLU's brief submitted
by ACLU cooperating attorney Burton Newman. "The true indicia of a
free society is the extent to which it allows for openness of
government."
The ACLU's brief stresses that under Missouri law government
records are presumed open unless they fall explicitly into a
particular exception.
"The State never told Ms. Rafert how the release of these records
would jeopardize safety and security," said ACLU of Eastern Missouri
Executive Director Matt LeMieux. "They took an 'it's a safety and
security matter because we said so' attitude. The state has to show
much more than that to claim these records fall under an exception to
the law."
The case is Rafert v. Missouri, No. 01CV 325895.
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