From The Columbus Dispatch The Ohio Innocence Project contends it is illegal, and undermines accountability, for Columbus police to refuse to release records on closed murder cases until the killers die behind bars or are freed from prison.
An attorney with the group, based at the University of Cincinnati College Of Law, sued Police Chief Kim Jacobs in the Ohio Supreme Court on Friday over her division’s refusal to release investigative records in a murder case.
Columbus police have refused to release case files in murder cases since 2010, interpreting an appellate-court ruling as forbidding the release of records as long as defendants still have potential appeals.