Contempt case against reporters dismissed

Months after the Broward school board called for contempt hearings against the South Florida Sun Sentinel for coverage of the Parkland school shooting, a Broward judge issued her formal ruling Monday. She said no.

The school district requested contempt proceedings last summer after the Sun Sentinel published a school district report containing confidential records involvling Nikolas Cruz, the former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High student who murdered 17 staff and students on Feb. 14, 2018.

Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer ordered last year that the report, prepared by a consultant, be released to the public, but only with vast portions blacked out to protect Cruz’s information.

The school district’s attempt to edit the documents failed, however. Sun Sentinel reporters Brittany Wallman and Paula McMahon copied the blackedout records and pasted them into another document to reveal information the district had tried to conceal, including ways in which the schools mishandled Cruz’s education.

Scherer in August blasted the newspaper for violating the spirit of her order allowing the release of only edited documents. The Sun Sentinel — with support from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 30 news organizations — argued that the newspaper is entitled to print information it obtains legally.

In her written ruling Monday, Scherer did not go into detail about why she was denying the school board’s petition.

Cruz faces the death penalty for 17 counts of first-degree murder. He also is charged with 17 counts of attempted murder for victims who were shot but survived.

Late Monday, the Broward Public Defender’s Office announced that it intends to demand information from prosecutors that until now has remained exempt from public disclosure, including crime scene videos, body camera footage from inside the school, photos, medical reports and audio recordings.

Public Defender Howard Finkelstein said in a court filing that his office had not requested the most sensitive evidence because he didn’t want to make it a public record. Most information provided to the defense must be released to the public under Florida law.

“A broad discovery request would have resulted in the disclosure of material that would further traumatize the victims, their families and the community,” Finkelstein wrote.

But the defense can’t prepare a case without that material, he said, and prosecutors are unwilling to accept a guilty plea from Cruz in exchange for a sentence of life in prison.

Finkelstein said he is waiting to see whether the governor signs a law restricting the release of such records.