by Patrick Irving 82431
3-11-20 8:00 a.m.
The Idaho Department of Correction is commencing damage control in response to recent news coverage. Specifically, the March 5th Tommy Simmons article, “Idaho Faces Another Lawsuit Over Lethal Injection Secrecy” at idahopress.com — which spotlighted Director Josh Tewalt’s questionable purchase of lethal injection drugs in 2012 — and Rebecca Boone’s March 2nd article “Organizations Ask Idaho High Court To Open Execution Records,” as syndicated by the Associated Press.
First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter received notice March 10th from IDOC’s JPay e-mail system that the Simmons article “cannot be delivered.” Boone, who is a member of the Idaho Press Club, has been covering the story since 2018. Her initial coverage in the Spokesman Review, “U of I Professor Sues Idaho for Execution Records,” was also “returned to sender” on JPay.
In addition to censoring the realm of public knowledge from their inmates, IDOC has refused to abide by Idaho’s public record laws, following a suit brought by University of Idaho’s Professor Aliza Cover. Aliza is represented by the ACLU and supported in friend-of-the-court briefs by the American Bar Association, the Idaho Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Idaho Press Club, the Associated Press, the Idaho Statesman, and KTVB News.
Local news agencies aren’t alone in their struggle of having Departmental information withheld. In 2018 Contract Monitor Monte Hansen required a public records request from our Idaho inmates in Texas who wanted to understand the grievance policy that the Department was implementing on the Mexican border — a basic necessity for bringing claims forth in court. While the policy is meant to be made available free to inmates at the time of request, it took months for them to receive an actual copy. And only then did it come from the ACLU.
More recently, IDOC Long-Term Restrictive Housing policy 319.02.01.003 was discovered not to exist, despite a hard-copy update stating it was effective in 2018.
We’ll have more on this situation as it unfolds.
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Please alert the organizations above that they’ve been censored and help us share the stories that are being kept from us.
Also, keep your eye on the battle for our public records disclosure. It’s YOUR right to know.
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This First Amend This! newsbreak is presented in alliance with the Book of Irving Project.
Solidarity in presshood!