Judge fines state cabinet over withheld records

FRANKFORT, Ky. - A judge has fined the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services more than $16,000 after concluding it withheld records about children who died or were hurt because of abuse and neglect.

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, in a ruling issued Thursday, found that the cabinet willfully withheld public information from the Lexington Herald-Leader, The Courier-Journal and the Todd County Standard. The papers had sued the cabinet seeking access to records of children the cabinet had contact with before they were killed or badly hurt as a result of abuse or neglect.

"In cases in which there has been a death or near-death of a child, the balance of the equities weighs more heavily in favor of public disclosure because of the urgent need ... to expose the cabinet's actions to public scrutiny when its actions or failure to act has life or death consequences," Shepherd wrote.

Herald-Leader editor Peter Baniak told the paper that the message sent "could not be clearer" (http://bit.ly/wcFJ41 ).

"We think the message could not be clearer that it's time for the cabinet to comply with the judge's multiple rulings, to truly open these records and stop what has been a clear pattern of delay and searching for loopholes," Baniak said.

John Fleischaker, an attorney for The Courier-Journal and the Todd County newspaper, told the paper no information should be omitted, but that Shepherd's ruling is worth considering (http://cjky.it/ymDvD9 ).

"It's a thoughtful basis for further discussion," he said.

Shepherd entered his orders Thursday in two lawsuits, one involving the Lexington Herald-Leader and The Courier-Journal of Louisville, and the other the Todd County Standard.

Shepherd also ordered the cabinet to pay a total of more than $57,000 in legal fees the papers incurred in challenging the cabinet's refusal to release the records.

Cabinet Secretary Janie Miller said the agency was "weighing its options" on the order to pay penalties and attorney fees, and other issues. Miller said the cabinet was pleased that Shepherd said it may withhold names of children injured in abuse and neglect cases, and the names of private citizens who report suspected abuse.

"The judge recognized that the public's interest in determining whether the cabinet did its job is not compromised by respecting the confidentiality of those children who survived grievous injury and those citizens who come forward to report abuse or neglect," Miller said in a statement.

The Lexington and Louisville newspapers sued in 2010 after the cabinet withheld records Shepherd had ruled were public. The Todd County Standard filed a separate lawsuit against the cabinet seeking access to records involving 9-year-old Amy Dye, beaten to death by her adoptive brother in February.

Shepherd ruled again in November that records in child death and near-death cases are public.

Shepherd ruled Thursday that the cabinet withheld too much information from the internal reviews. The judge ruled that the cabinet may redact only the names of child victims who are hurt but don't die, the names of private citizens who report suspected abuse, the names of minor siblings of victims and the names of minor perpetrators.