FOIA
C.J. Ciaramella | 9.9.2024 3:15 PM
In response to a public records lawsuit filed by the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason, a federal judge has ruled the U.S. government can hide findings about whether people who died in federal prison received adequate medical care, partly out of fear that those records could be used to criticize prison officials.
U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Christopher R. Cooper issued an opinion in August that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was largely not required to disclose redacted information from mortality reviews of in-custody deaths in two federal women's prisons that have been the subject of numerous accusations of medical neglect.
In addition to finding that the mortality reviews were part of the BOP's decision-making process, Cooper wrote that the BOP had successfully demonstrated that releasing the records would result in foreseeable harm to the agency. The judge wrote that a declaration from a BOP official credibly established that the mortality reviews could be used to "criticize" or "ridicule" the agency.
"And, as described above, she notes that the members of the Mortality Review Committee would be 'deter[red] . . . from acknowledging mistakes' if they feared those mistakes would be publicized," Cooper continued.
Reason Foundation, represented by the law office of Deborah Golden, filed........