Innocent until proven guilty? Well, yes

Every so often during my three decades as a newspaper editor, I would field complaints that the newspaper should not have reported an arrest (usually for prostitution, drunk driving or similar offenses). "People are innocent until proven guilty, ain't they?" Well, of course, I would respond, but we only reported that they were arrested, not that they were guilty. (One of the hardest lessons I had to teach new crime reporters was not to assume or imply that an arrestee was the "perpetrator." It remains one of the most common errors I see in some publications.)

Now the N.C. General Assembly is taking this empty argument to the issue of personnel records. Even though North Carolina has some of the most restrictive laws in the nation regarding release of information about taxpayer-paid personnel, legislators seem poised to make matters even worse. An amendment offered by Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat once thought to be an open-government liberal, would keep secret any personnel actions until after a state employee is convicted of a crime. Her argument, that state employees who have not been proven guilty or who have not exhausted their appeals should not have their reputations sullied by public exposure, is the same argument I used to hear from mommas of drunk drivers ("It'll just kill his grandma if this goes in the paper; I know it will!").

I suspect the State Employees Association of North Carolina union has its fingerprints on this revision to a bill that was meant to open up the state's secretiveness over employees who have been disciplined, demoted or fired. If legislators approve the Ross amendment, it will be a sad day for taxpayers who would be denied the facts about the people who supposedly work for them. Maybe next year, legislators will make it illegal to publish the names of drunk drivers or guys caught in prostitution stings until after they go to trial (and plead to a lesser offense) and exhaust all their appeals.