Paper: Judge Must Reject Contempt Effort Over Parkland Story
By CURT ANDERSON | August 12, 2018 3:03 pm
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida newspaper urged a judge Friday to reject a school board’s effort to have it and two reporters held in contempt for publishing a story on the educational background of Parkland school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz.
The Broward County school board sought the contempt ruling after the South Florida Sun Sentinel published details last week of the Cruz report that were supposed to be blacked out to protect his privacy. The newspaper’s filing Friday contends it had every right to do the story because the redactions were done improperly and easily accessed.
“In a rush to deflect from its own negligence in publicly disclosing the (report) at issue in a wholly unsecured format, the school board now seeks to have this court find the Sun Sentinel in contempt for exercising their First Amendment rights to truthfully report on a matter of the highest public concern,” wrote newspaper attorney Dana McElroy in the filing. McElroy has also represented The Associated Press in some matters related to the Parkland shooting.
Cruz, 19, faces the death penalty if convicted of killing 17 people and wounding 17 others in the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. His lawyers have said he will plead guilty in exchange for a life prison sentence.
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