News outlets push for Katrina-related investigation records

The Louisiana Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in an open-records dispute over documents from a state investigation into the highly publicized post-Hurricane Katrina deaths of patients at Memorial Medical Center.

The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune and CNN brought the lawsuit. According to a Times-Picayune story, investigative files in Louisiana are typically closed to the public while criminal charges are pending or “reasonably anticipated.” But the newspaper argued in court Monday that in the Memorial Medical Center case, once a grand jury refused to indict the doctor and two nurses arrested in 2006 on murder charges, the investigation was closed and the records should have been released.