HARTFORD – The ACLU of Connecticut has filed an emergency motion to intervene and obtain video exhibits played at an October trial in the United States District Court. The videos were introduced into evidence by both the plaintiff, Justin Mustafa, and the defendant, corrections employee Christopher Byars. In the lawsuit, Mustafa alleged that Byars used excessive force on him at the Garner Correctional Institution, permanently injuring him. A jury sided with Mustafa, awarding him $1.3 million for his injuries.
The videos were played at trial in open court, and neither party objected to their introduction into evidence. Neither Mustafa nor Byars asked that the courtroom be closed while the videos were played, and neither party asked that the videos be restricted from public access in the court’s files.
“Public oversight of our prison system is vital, so we requested copies of the videos,” said Chelsea-Infinity Gonzalez, the ACLU of Connecticut’s director of public policy and advocacy. “Any time a person is injured in prison by a government employee, that’s a serious thing meriting public discussion,” said Gonzalez.
The ACLU of Connecticut requested copies of the videos on November 14, but still not been granted access to them. Last week, the court gave Mustafa and Byars a month in which to weigh in with their opinions of the ACLU’s records request.
“The public’s rights to access court documents are consistently described as ‘contemporaneous’ in the case law, because the value of transparency is the ability to take part in policy debates as they happen, not years after they slide into the rearview mirror,” said ACLU of Connecticut legal director Dan Barrett. “Each day that goes by without public access to the videos here is a loss for the public, so we had to act,” he added.
Requests for information can take years under Connecticut’s Freedom of Information statute, and there are many ways the public's right to know can be delayed or skewed. But when a document or video is entered into a court’s record, the First Amendment also provides people with the ability to obtain these records.
“The business of the courts is the people’s business, and we look forward to obtaining these videos and making sure that Nutmeggers know what is done in their names behind prison walls,” said Gonzalez.
A copy of the ACLU's emergency motion to intervene is here.
