N.C. media sue Easley, allege violations

The Associated Press

Media organizations from across North Carolina sued Gov. Mike Easley on Monday, accusing his administration of violating the state’s public records law through the “systematic deletion, destruction or concealment” of e-mail messages.

The complaint filed in Wake County Superior Court asks a judge to declare that Easley violated the law because his staff told cabinet agency employees to delete or destroy e-mails sent to and from the governor’s office.

Easley also violated the law personally last month when he threw away a handwritten note from former state Health and Human Services Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom, the lawsuit said. Easley disclosed he had thrown away the note shortly after The News & Observer of Raleigh concluded last month a series of stories on the failures of the state’s mental health system, which Hooker Odom led as department secretary.

“The defendant has failed to carry out his duties pursuant to ... the North Carolina constitution,” the lawsuit said.

The media groups also want the court to require Easley and his office to comply with the law, to try to recover deleted e-mails, and provide previously undisclosed messages.

Easley spokesman Seth Effron said the governor’s office had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Roy Cooper, whose office likely would defend Easley in the case, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

E-mails sent and received by state employees are considered public records if they contain information related to the transaction of public business. E-mails can be destroyed under guidelines set by the Department of Cultural Resources, but the lawsuit alleges the department’s current guidelines don’t comply with the law.

For example, the lawsuit said, the guidelines violate the law because they allow individual e-mail users to destroy messages if they are of “short-term value” or “when they no longer have reference value to the sender or receiver of the message.”

“The law is to be interpreted expansively and liberally in order to maximize public access to government records,” the lawsuit said.

Easley has assembled a panel to recommend changes to the current guidelines by next month, an effort he has said will ensure the public records law is being followed.

The lawsuit stems from accusations made by Debbie Crane, a former spokeswoman at the Department of Health and Human Services. Crane accused the governor’s press office of directing public relations workers at cabinet-level agencies to delete e-mails sent to and from the governor’s office.

Notes from two public information officers released two weeks ago by an Easley attorney appeared to support Crane’s accusations. But Easley and his attorneys have said a review of e-mails found no evidence that such a systematic destruction occurred.

The lawsuit also alleges, citing Crane’s affidavit and other evidence, that members of the governor’s staff also regularly discouraged the use of e-mails to avoid creating records that would be subject to disclosure.

“The policies and procedures described above were promulgated and implemented willfully and for the purpose of evading the public records law and depriving the people of North Carolina of access to information and records,” the lawsuit states.

Easley also said last month that he “chunked” a handwritten letter from Hooker Odom explaining why she didn’t talk publicly about the mental health reform effort. The letter was a public record, according to the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit also alleges the governor, in his official capacity, has failed to use adequate systems to store and retrieve e-mails.

Executive branch and cabinet-level agencies receive an estimated 884,000 incoming messages daily, according to the state information technology office. Employees are reminded once a month to delete e-mails in their account, but are directed to follow the state’s retention rules in doing so.

In addition to The News & Observer, the media groups who sued are The Charlotte Observer; The Associated Press; the North Carolina Press Association; The Fayetteville Observer; The Wilson Daily Times; The Alamance News; Freedom Communications Inc. and Freedom Eastern North Carolina Publications Inc.; Media General Operations Inc.; and The John Locke Foundation.