Suit seeks secret indictment in JonBenet Ramsey case
A newspaper reporter and a press advocacy group have filed suit seeking release of a secret grand jury indictment in the JonBenet Ramsey case.
The suit was filed on Wednesday by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and by Charlie Brennan, a reporter for the Boulder Daily Camera, report the Daily Camera and the Huffington Post. The Daily Camera was not a plaintiff.
According to a January story by Brennan in the Daily Camera, a grand jury voted to indict JonBenet Ramsey’s parents in 1999 on charges of child abuse resulting in death, but the district attorney refused to prosecute. The DA at the time, Alex Hunter, did not sign the indictment because he did not believe he could prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, the newspaper reported.
The Ramseys were cleared by a new DA in 2008 after DNA evidence pointed to another, unidentified suspect in the 1996 death of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. Police have not yet linked the DNA to a suspect.
The suit claims the indictment is a criminal justice record that should be disclosed under the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act. The Camera and Brennan had previously sought the records, without success, under the state open records act.
