Jailhouse whistle blower case dismissed in Neuces County

Good.

A judge in Nueces County today dismissed a criminal indictment against Texas Commission on Jail Standards Executive Director Adan Muñoz.

Last month, the Nueces County District Attorney charged Muñoz with two counts of misusing official information. The indictment alleged that Muñoz used his office to illegally release to local reporters confidential information about a suicide in the Nueces County Jail. Release of the information incensed Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin, who told local reporters that the case was still under investigation and that the documents were not Muñoz's to release.

Open government advocates called the indictment outrageous, and others said the charges were simply retaliation by Kaelin against Muñoz because the jail standards commission gave the Nueces County Jail — which Kaelin runs — failing grades on state inspections.

The Corpus Christi Caller Times has more:

Two news reporters, Jaime Powell of the Caller-Times and Rudy Treviño of KIII-TV, asked for the form and Muñoz provided it. Sheriff Jim Kaelin took the position that the intake form was part of an ongoing criminal investigation — into the suicide — and therefore was not public. Kaelin complained to Muñoz’s bosses at the commission, who consulted their lawyer, an assistant attorney general, who said the information is public and Muñoz was not at fault. The legal advice of an assistant attorney general is significant because the Texas Attorney General’s Office is the authority on what is public information.

The intake form is public information. It became public the instant it came into existence and can’t become non-public retroactively just because it’s of interest in a criminal investigation. Of course Muñoz’s attorneys agree. They informed District Attorney Anna Jimenez of the many ways the document is public, and how and why Muñoz’s release of it was a matter of duty, not choice, in a letter dated Sept. 21.