at a mobile home park, but city officials have said Alabama’s grand jury law prevents them from telling the public.“I don’t think the … laws in Alabama mandate that a public record somehow becomes a secret record that no one can ever see because it’s been shown to a grand jury,” said Evans Bailey, an attorney for the Alabama Press Association.
Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood has said he will not discuss evidence that the grand jury will review. A spokeswoman for the office said Thursday that the district attorney would have no further comment on a Mobile City Councilthat he speed up the investigation. She told FOX10 News that the office has not given “legal advice” to the city about what it should or should not say publicly.
Bailey offered the hypothetical example of a city budget, one of the most basic public documents. What if a city official were accused of including fraudulent information in the budget and it became part of a grand jury investigation? But Gunita Singh, a staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said there is a difference between having the discretion to withhold information and being required to withhold it. Mobile officials have said they’re not allowed to divulge the information.