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Is This Utah's AG or Reality TV?
Fans of the Fox reality TV show COPS should just love the new Web site of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. But the American Civil Liberties Union is anything but enamored. The AG's redesigned Web site, unveiled Aug. 27 as what a seemingly reality-TV obsessed office described as an extreme make-over, prominently features the arrest video and mugshot of an alleged Internet predator. The video shows the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force assisting local police as they arrest a 26-year-old man suspected of arranging to have sex with an underage girl he met online. Actually all it shows is two men escorting a man in handcuffs through a parking lot. That is followed by the comments of a local sheriff's detective, who says, "If I was someone who had a daughter, I'd be very scared about what's going on," and of a local police officer, who says, "It's crazy that we have guys like this that would do this type of thing."
No reason to let the presumption of innocence get in the way of good TV. But the local chapter of the ACLU sees it otherwise. ACLU lawyers showed up at Shurtleff's press conference announcing the site to register their protest. "We are concerned that by posting the arrest video of an unconvicted person, the attorney general is more interested in political grandstanding than protecting the public," ACLU lawyer Marina Lowe told the Deseret News. Added ACLU attorney William Carlson, "Guilty before charged."
The Deseret News points out in Shurtleff's defense that he did say at the news conference that the suspect in the video was innocent until proven guilty. Addressing the reporters gathered for the news conference, Shurtleff said: "You always make it clear that they're innocent until proven guilty. I don't see any difference between what you're doing and what we're posting as far as our educational process and alerting people to a potential problem."
Shurtleff is up for re-election this fall, raising the question of whether public reaction to the new site will leave him a survivor or make him the biggest loser. In an editorial Saturday, the Deseret News sided with the ACLU in condemning the Web site and characterizing it as politically motivated. "Shurtleff has the right to free expression," the edtiorial says. "But exercising free speech has consequences. We'd argue that the consequences are more significant for the state's elected attorney general. As an officer of the court, Shurtleff should help to ensure that the man who appears on his Web site video, whom Shurtleff says is innocent until proven guilty, receives a fair trial."
Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on September 8, 2008 at 12:29 PM | Permalink
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