Date: 1/8/2009
By TIMBERLY ROSS
Associated Press Writer
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Several media organizations on Thursday joined a Nebraska historical society’s fight to obtain the names of 957 people buried in unmarked graves at a former psychiatric hospital cemetery.
The organizations filed a “friend of the court” brief supporting a lawsuit filed by the Adams County Historical Society in Hastings.
The bodies were buried in the institution’s cemetery between 1889 and 1957. Many of the people were committed to the institution without their consent for any number of health conditions or because of poverty.
Nebraska officials have said the names are part of the patients’ medical records and thus can’t be released under state statutes protecting patient privacy. The historical society argues that the patients should not be forgotten and there is no evidence that they wanted their bodies buried in unmarked graves.
An Adams County district judge ruled in favor of the state, and an appeal from the historical society is pending with the Nebraska Supreme Court. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for March.
In Nebraska, people have the right to access certain governmental records, including death records and documentation involving tax-funded matters. The brief filed Thursday argues that a federal medical privacy law that the lower court cited does not supersede Nebraska law.
“The public interest in this information is strong, given the history of treatment of the mentally ill, the need for public oversight — even in retrospect — of government institutions, movements in other states to acknowledge those buried in similar cemeteries, and the history of the press in documenting the experience of those in mental institutions,” wrote Lucy Dalglish, a lawyer with the committee.
“The privacy interests here are minimal. … The records should be released and the trial court’s decision overturned,” Dalglish also said.
Hospital administrators have said that families can find out burial information on death certificates, which are public record. They also have said families also can obtain patient records by court order on a “need-to-know” basis.
The groups that filed the brief are The Associated Press, the Nebraska Press Association, the Nebraska Broadcasters Association, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, The Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, the Radio-Television News Directors Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.
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On the Net:
Nebraska Supreme Court, http://court.nol.org
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.