N.L. premier wins partial publication ban on murder case information

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — A Newfoundland judge has upheld a partial publication ban on details in a murder case involving the exboyfriend of Premier Dwight Ball’s daughter.

Ball went to court to keep information involving Jade Ball under wraps.

He argued her privacy and health interests trumped the media’s right to report certain specifics Dwight Ball shared with police during a weeklong manhunt in October 2015 for the suspect in a fatal shooting. Ball was less than two months from the election that would make him premier when he told investigators the killer may be his daughter’s former boyfriend.

Chief Justice Raymond Whalen of the provincial Supreme Court ruled Monday the partial ban is a reasonable protection of privacy that does not overly restrict the media’s right to report.

Whalen ruled that allowing that information to be published could discourage other people from coming forward in future cases.

Lawyers for CBC and the SaltWire Network Inc. newspaper chain did not oppose the partial ban and weren’t in court Monday.

Whalen said citizens who in good faith offer private information to police need to believe that to the legal extent possible, it will be protected from widespread publication.

Documents released Dec. 19 under the partial ban outlined how Ball tipped police that the prime suspect wanted for murder in a botched St. John’s bar robbery could be Brandon Phillips.

A jury found Phillips, 29, guilty of second-degree murder in December. He is due back in court Feb. 22 for a sentencing hearing.

Details leading to Phillips’ arrest, which did not come out during his trial, were part of information related to a search warrant that Ball went to court to keep secret.

Ball said in an interview last December he only wanted to protect text messages and details related to private conversations with his daughter that he’d shared with police.

He argued his daughter had been charged with no crime and was not called to testify during the trial. He said her “privacy and personal health interests outweigh in importance any right of access to the information” sought by media.

Dwight Ball also told investigators that his daughter and Phillips had struggled in recent years with “a very serious drug problem” — especially opiates.

Ball said it was his civic responsibility to go to police. He said he especially thought about the shooting victim, former firefighter Larry Wellman.

Wellman, 63, died of massive blood loss from a single gunshot to the groin as he tried to stop a robbery in 2015.