Public's right to know trumps seal

May 22, 2012


Public's right to know trumps seal

Court precedent was disregarded in Witherspoon case

Our View

The guardianship case of Dr. John D. Witherspoon has taken a bumpy course through Davidson County Circuit Court, marked by an attempt to skirt the First Amendment that should give the public cause to reflect on how easily the right to know can be taken away from us.

Judge Randy Kennedy not only closed a hastily called hearing on May 11 regarding whether the doctor should be placed in a conservatorship; he sealed the court record, as well. Those moves violated legal precedent established in Tennessee by the 1985 State vs. Drake court case, as well as the state Supreme Court’s long-held belief that the public has a qualified right to attend judicial proceedings and read documentation of those proceedings.

The Tennessean and WSMV, whose representatives were kicked out of the May 11 hearing, may be accused of trying to intrude on private matters of the Witherspoon family solely because the doctor’s daughter, actress Reese Witherspoon, is a celebrity. But the real issue for these media outlets is the broader question: If court cases are entirely sealed, where is the oversight of the judicial process?

We ask that question because of Jewell Tinnon.

She is the 80-year-old Nashville resident who was placed in a conservatorship without her knowledge or consent nearly two years ago, and as a result lost all her possessions. Tinnon has since fought Kennedy’s ruling in her case, and is suing the attorney and social services agency who handled her conservatorship.

Of course there are many other Tennesseans who potentially face similar fates — and if those records are sealed there is opportunity for abuse and no public scrutiny.

That is why The Tennessean on Monday filed an emergency motion to intervene for the purpose of getting the Witherspoon record unsealed and to object to the closed proceedings and lack of camera access.

The personal details that the Witherspoons convinced Judge Kennedy were too sensitive for public disclosure had, in fact, already been made public in an affidavit that the doctor’s wife, Betty Witherspoon, had given earlier that week, as she sought an annulment of her husband’s marriage to another woman. In her lawsuit, she also willingly provided details of what she alleged were Dr. Witherspoon’s troubles with drinking, dementia, hoarding and overspending.

On Monday, Judge Kennedy acknowledged that he might have acted differently on May 11 had he known how much was already public. That still does not explain why the judge allowed an emergency hearing without following standard procedures.

The judge on Monday scheduled a hearing for June 1 on the media outlets’ emergency motion, and that’s a step in the right direction toward equal justice instead of the celebrity variety.

http://www.tennessean.com/print/article/20120522/OPINION01/305220008/Public-s-right-know-trumps-seal

Editor's note:

Reese, join the club... An Alice Gore relative filed a motion producing certified court transcripts proving that judge Kawamoto had appointed a severly mentally ill person as Alice' guardian. Furtheermore, the motion requested that the court investigate the present mental status of the guardian. What did the judge do? She would invesigate, but seal the records.  Lots of  luck with Randy K. Reese.

Alice R. Gore Estate value about 1 million dollars: Alice R. Gore, deceased, a disabled 99 year old ward of the Probate Court of Cook County, Judge Kawamoto’s courtroom was hours away from ending up in the Cook County Morgue. Alice's estate was depleted by probate court parasites and there were reportedly no funds to bury her. Her loving family paid for the burial expenses so that Alice would not have to suffer the indignity of being stacked like an Auschwitz inmate in the Cook County morgue. The judge allowed an easily manipulated, court documented, mentally disabled granddaughter to be appointed as Alice’s guardian and yet no sanctions were instituted against the judge or court officers for this blatant infraction of the law.



Strangely, 16 of Alice’s annuity checks, two of which show forged endorsements, disappeared. Alice’s daughter has a copy of a check with her signature possibly forged. The daughter’s attorney has been trying to obtain copies of the 16 other annuity checks for two years without success. Even more puzzling is a $150,000 life insurance policy owned by Alice and not inventoried into the estate by the court. The Probate Court of Cook of Cook County refuses to investigate these blatant infractions of the law. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

.KawamotoDragon.com