By Melissa Davlin, President
A case out of Arizona is impacting some Idaho journalists’ ability to get mugshots from sheriffs’ offices.
Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Houston v. Maricopa County that Maricopa County had violated Brian Houston’s constitutional rights by publishing his mugshot on a website before his trial. The county-run website kept mugshots online for three days, allowing other sites to scrape that information and post it on their own pages. Ultimately, Houston’s chargers were dismissed, but his mugshot remained online elsewhere.
The narrow decision said putting the mugshots online amounts to pretrial punishment – a violation of Houston’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.
In response, county sheriffs across Idaho, and in other states, are examining their own policies. As of Friday morning, Ada County still publishes mugshots and basic arrest information online. However, Nate Sunderland of East Idaho News tells me his staff has run into issues with Bannock, Custer, and Madison Counties declining to release mugshots because of the ruling.
Ultimately, Bannock and Madison changed course, agreeing to give out the photos in response to public records requests. And that’s the right move. Idaho’s open government laws are clear that those mugshots are public record. There are separate, and important, conversations that our industry continues to have about the ethics of publishing mugshots in the first place, but those are decisions that editors and journalists need to make, not the government.
It’s not yet clear how Idaho’s 40 other counties are responding to the ruling. I’m gathering more information, and in the meantime, if your newsroom runs into issues, please let me know at melissadavlin@gmail.com.
