Legal News

Inmate access to records becomes problem

By Glen Ashman

SEATTLE - An entrepreneurial spirit struck Allan Parmelee last fall as he sat in a Washington state prison, where he's serving 17 years for bombing the cars of two lawyers.  According to the state attorney general's office, Parmelee wrote to his brother — who's serving 11 years in Michigan for child pornography — saying they could make a killing collecting fines from government agencies around the country that take too long to respond to burdensome requests for public records.  "It's like selling real estate, except easier and more predictable," he wrote in the letter.  That abusive attitude toward public records is nothing new for Parmelee and a handful of other prisoners in Washington state who have used the Public Records Act to annoy, harass and simply get back at the people who put them and keep them behind bars, state officials say. Lawmakers say the problem has worsened dramatically in the last few years, and they're ready to stop it by allowing judges to restrict how much access inmates have to public records.

Full post as published by It's (Barely) Legal on February 22, 2009 (boomark / email).