HARTFORD — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed legislation into law on Wednesday that prevents the public release of crime scene photos and video evidence from the Connecticut school shootings that took the lives of 20 first-graders and six school employees.
The new law, a result of efforts to balance private and public interests, devises an exemption to the state's Freedom of Information Act and applies to homicides in Connecticut.
The law prevents the release of photographs, film, video and other images depicting a homicide victim if those records “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of the personal privacy of the victim or the victim's surviving family members.”
Malloy signed the bill hours after the General Assembly approved the eleventh-hour compromise during the early morning hours of the final day of the state legislative session. Malloy said he believes “a parent of a deceased child should have the right to remember that child” as they wish and not because they were “caught up in some tragic and unbelievable circumstances.”
The governor's office originally worked privately with legislative leaders and the state's top prosecutor to draft a bill that would address the concerns of families who lost relatives in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown. They considered various proposals, including legislation applying only to the Newtown victims and allowing their families to decide whether certain information should be released.
But in the end, the bill was tailored off an exemption in the federal Freedom of Information law.
The new law generates a one-year moratorium on the release of certain portions of audiotape or other recordings in which the condition of a homicide victim is described. The exemption does not include 911 emergency call recordings, however.
Additionally, it starts a task force that would make recommendations on the balance between victim privacy under the FOI law and the public's right to know. The task force must submit its recommendations by Jan. 1.
