South Dakota Supreme Court hears arguments in Sanford sealed records case

The South Dakota Supreme Courtroom heard arguments within the case of an “implicated particular person” this week.

SDPB beforehand confirmed this refers to billionaire T. Denny Sanford. The case orbits a felony probe into a toddler pornography investigation.

A number of media retailers have filed formal requests to unseal recordsdata associated to the case, which the state wouldn’t enable till the conclusion of the investigation.

Stacy Hegge is the lawyer representing Sanford. She argued solely Sanford and the state ought to have full entry to the paperwork.

“The state has ended its investigation into my consumer, and it has concluded that no crime was dedicated,” Hegge mentioned. “This enchantment, nonetheless, is targeted on the slim situation of redaction. Whether or not my consumer, now cleared by the investigation, has a proper to examine the search warrant affidavits for confidential info earlier than they’re launched to the general public. The press isn’t an occasion, they usually haven’t any standing to problem my purchasers proper to examine these affidavits.”

Jeff Beck, representing investigative journalism outlet ProPublica, argued these paperwork needs to be categorized as public document.

“These underlying warrants weren’t requested on the time,” Beck mentioned. “What was on the lookout for was these issues that the statute – 4.1 – particularly, explicitly says are public paperwork. The warrant itself, the returns, and the inventories. We weren’t asking for the underlying affidavits, we had been asking based mostly on a transparent, unambiguous statute.”

Paul Swedlund, representing the state, mentioned the case pits privateness requirements in opposition to press entry.

“Right here the state’s curiosity is within the growth and adoption of a privateness normal that doesn’t swallow the rule of public entry to data of legislation enforcement and judicial exercise,” Swedlund mentioned. “Right here the intrusion on privateness incident to this search was warranted by a judicial discovering of possible trigger. So now the query is whether or not privateness that was topic to lawful intrusion perhaps reasserted to disclaim the general public entry to data of legislation enforcement and judicial exercise simply because no indictment is returned.”

The courtroom will rule on the case within the coming months.