Muscogee Superior Court Judge Frank Jordan Jr. has ordered the Muscogee County School District to disclose a letter in which lawyers filed notice of intent to file claims against the school system on behalf of victims of a Columbus High School teacher convicted of sexual abuse.
More than six months after the Muscogee County School District received the letter, Jordan ruled Tuesday for the Ledger-Enquirer in i t s q u e s t fo r rel e a s e o f t h e document under the Georgia Open Records Act. The Jan. 25 request for the letter was made 17 days after it was written by attorney C. Frederick Overby.
Overby and attorney Gary Bruce represent two former students of James Cypert Jr., who pleaded guilty Nov. 30 to sexual assault against a person in custody. One student, an 18-year-old when the consensual sexual acts occurred in 2005, testified during Cypert’s guilty plea session.
Cypert was sentenced to a year in prison, followed by five years on probation, and has been stripped of his teaching certificate.
Ledger-Enquirer Executive Editor Ben Holden welcomed the judge’s ruling, but said the issue should never have had to go that far.
“I continue to be perplexed over why our local government and their counsel periodically flaunt basic open records principles and choose instead to err on the side of secrecy,” Holden said. “I think the taxpayers have a right to know who’s trying to stick their hands into our collective pocketbook.
“I’m frustrated by expensive, wasteful litigation that merely yields the result that the public was entitled to in the first place.”
Atlanta attorney Walter Bush, who represented the newspaper, also said the issue was “not even a close call” and should never have had to reach the courts.
“It was an unnecessary expenditure of public funds and an unnecessary effort on the part of the paper,” Bush said. “It is not the intent of the law that the public has to sue an agency any time they want to get a public record.
“We just don’t feel there was ever any question this was a public letter. It was a public record and should have been produced,” he said.
The attorney said the newspaper agreed months ago to receiving a copy of the letter that redacted the names of the victims of the sexual assault — the only condition of release that Jordan ordered in his ruling requiring release of the document.
“The court agreed with our legal position,” Bush said.
The school district, represented by attorney Greg Ellington of the Hatcher-Stubbs firm, argued that the letter was exempt from the Open Records Act because it was a file “similar to a medical or veterinary record,” it contains information the release of which would constitute an invasion of privacy, disclosure of the letter would have a “chilling effect” o n a c h a n n el o f communication, and that a balancing test of public versus private interest would require nondisclosure.
Jordan’s ruling rejected the school district’s arguments. The idea of the letter’s release constituting an invasion of personal privacy of the victims because of the acts described within it was particularly rejected.
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