Things could get very interesting if this continues:http://cjonline.com/news/2013-11-08/top ... e-lsd-caseTopeka judge told to reconsider sealed file in LSD caseCase involved two convictions of men linked to Wamego labPosted: November 8, 2013 - 4:57pm By Robert Boczkiewicz
Special to The Capital-JournalDENVER — An appeals court has told a judge to reconsider whether to unseal a file on a confidential informant against two men convicted of the massive trafficking of LSD from an illicit laboratory near Wamego, Kan.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Rogers “erred in the manner in which” he last year denied the request of Clyde Apperson and William Pickard.
They were convicted in 2003 in the judge’s Topeka courtroom. Pickard is serving a term of life in prison and Apperson a 30-year prison term.
Gordon Skinner was a confidential informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration during part of the time he was involved with Pickard and Anderson in the LSD crimes. Skinner testified against them.
During the trial, Rogers ordered that the DEA’s file on Skinner be kept sealed and turned over to defense attorneys. The defense attorneys were prohibited from making the file public.
The defendants asked Rogers in 2011 to unseal the file for several reasons, including for trying again to attack their convictions. Assistant U.S. attorney Greg Hough opposed the request.
The judges of the Denver-based appeals court ruled 3-0, in a 13-page decision, that Rogers erred in three ways in considering the defendants’ request, by failing:
■ To require the prosecutor to meet his legal burden “to articulate a significant interest” in why the file should remain sealed.
■ To apply the presumption, established in other appellate cases, that court records typically should be open to the public.
The appellate judges stated that Rogers “incorrectly placed the burden on the defendants” to offer a compelling reason” why they need to have the file unsealed.
■ To consider whether unsealing a redacted version of the file “would adequately serve the as yet unarticulated government interest” in keeping the file sealed.
The appellate judges stated that Rogers should consider whether redacting “just the still sensitive, and previously undisclosed, information” from the file, and then unsealing the remainder of it, would adequately serve the government’s interest.
“The fact that some of the sealed information has already been made public (in court proceedings) suggests that much of the information in the DEA records could be unsealed,” the judges wrote.
