Information released by the Sebastian County Prosecutor's Office posted on Arkansas Court Connect that identified the mother of a 7-year-old child who was the victim of child abuse was altered this morning after yesterday's story on the matter by Today in Fort Smith.
The identifying information, which named the mother and contained the initials of the victim, is clearly in violation of standards put in place to protect the identity of under-aged victims. The same standards apply to under-aged suspects in crimes unless they are charged as adults,
The Sebastian County prosecutor's office entered a motion/order to substitute affidavit for warrant of arrest and redacted copy of affidavit for arrest at 8:44 a.m. this morning on the Arkansas Court Connect website, approximately forty hours after being notified by today in Fort Smith the identifying information was available to the public.
"I personally contacted the prosecutor's office by email at approximately 1:00 p.m. Wednesday afternoon to let them know the information was on the website and that we were going to print a story about the situation," said Dennis McCaslin, editor and publisher of Today in Fort smith. "We waited until close of business Wednesday before printing our original story."
"We felt like four hours was plenty of time to give that office to correct their mistake before going live with our story, said McCaslin. "The fact that it took them a day and a half to make sure the information could not be seen by the public is a little disturbing."
That motion that was entered this morning was submitted for the office of Daniel Shue by Barrett Milam, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney. It was signed on June 27 by Honorable R. Gunner Delay, Circuit Judge, allowing the removal of the unredacted information.
Today in Fort Smith has learned the identifying information was posted along with the original Affidavit for Warrant and motion order to seal on March 6 of this year,
meaning the offending material was available for public consumption for just under four months.
Today in Fort Smith has still not received any communication from the Sebastian County Prosecutor' office on this matter.
We were informed by a reader this morning they received a phone call last night from a friend who is close to the situation who said Prosecutor Shue was "not happy" with the publication of the original story.
We did get a response Friday morning from the Arkansas Attorney General's office.
When asked if anyone with the Attorney General's Office had contacted the Sebastian County Prosecutor, the communication director said that "he personally had not" but had discussed the case with "his people".
He then referred us to Bob McMahan, who is with the state Prosecutor Coordinator's Office.
McMahan, who were we told was "in a meeting" also failed to return our call despite his secretary being informed of the confidentiality violation and details of the case.
Today in Fort Smith attempted to contact McMahan in an effort to ascertain the liability of the person or persons responsible for the snafu.
"No one is above the law', said McCaslin. "Mr. Shue and his office has a repeated history of picking and choosing who they go after to prosecute based upon either their personal relationships or how it affects their political standing."
"Enough is enough," said McCaslin. "The bottom line in this situation is someone is responsible for allowing this unredacted information to be available to the public and there should be consequences."
"Rest assured, if Today in Fort Smith, or any other publication for that matter, published information identifying a juvenile victim or suspect for that matter, there would be legal consequences", said McCaslin. "Mr. Shue and his employees need to be held to the same, or a higher, standard."
TIFS Investigates considers this an ongoing story and will provide more details as they come available.
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