Seeks public access to currently-confidential court documents
CONCORD, N.H. - The ACLU of New Hampshire on Thursday filed a petition at the New Hampshire Supreme Court seeking to make public the court documents of lawsuits from individual police officers who are seeking removal from the state’s “Laurie List.” The “Laurie List,” formally titled the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule (EES), is maintained by the N.H. Department of Justice and consists of police officers who have engaged in misconduct that reflects negatively on their credibility or trustworthiness.
“Completely sealing the appeals of police officers’ suits to be removed from the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule violates the New Hampshire Constitution,” said Henry Klementowicz, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of New Hampshire. “More importantly, it prevents advocates, the public, and the legislature from knowing whether the new process is working as intended. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and the public wants more accountability and transparency about the police—not less.”
The EES list was designed to help prosecutors identify when they have a constitutional duty to produce to a defendant potentially exculpatory evidence in a police officer’s personnel file.
Under the state’s new disclosure law, each officer on the EES list has a chance to appeal their inclusion on the list before it is ultimately released to the public. Currently, all the details of their court cases are viewed as confidential. The ACLU of New Hampshire’s filing requests the court documents and legal arguments, but not the names, of officers who lost their initial case for removal and are appealing to the state Supreme Court.
The ACLU’s filing is here: https://www.aclu-nh.org/en/cases/petition-access-ees-cases