Douglas forsakes fight over e-mails

Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas dropped his opposition Friday to the release of hundreds of e-mails exchanged between himself and a former employee, saying he no longer wants the distraction of the lawsuit.

Douglas withdrew his appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court and said that the release of the e-mails between him and former juvenile drug court coordinator Marina Kalani would “put an end to the rumor, public speculation, and undue controversy.”

Douglas is engaged in prosecuting what may be the county’s biggest murder case in its history – the triple-murder case against Joseph E. Duncan III.

The e-mails are unlikely to be released anytime soon, however.

Kalani is continuing with her appeal of a July district court decision that deemed the public has the right to read the full contents of the e-mails. That means the 889 messages won’t be released until after the Idaho Supreme Court weighs in.

The lawsuit was filed by Cowles Publishing Co., owner of The Spokesman-Review, to force the release of the full contents of the e-mail messages between Douglas and Kalani.

The newspaper asked for the messages hoping to gain a better understanding of the sudden collapse earlier this year of the Juvenile Education and Training Court, which was administered by Kalani.

County Commission Chairman Gus Johnson has previously said some of the e-mails that he has viewed raised concerns about the possibility of an improper relationship between Kalani and Douglas.

On Friday, Johnson declined to elaborate on the content of the e-mails but said he was pleased that Douglas dropped his appeal of the district court ruling.

“I’ve always been under the impression that all of that is public record,” he said. “When you start saying this is and this isn’t, all you do is raise questions about what is going on.”

But Johnson wasn’t willing to release the entire contents of the e-mails last winter because of his uncertainty over whether they actually constituted public records. “I err on the side of caution,” he said. “The courts rule sometimes different from what my opinion would be.”

While the county commissioners are named defendants in the suit, they have taken an essentially neutral stance as Kalani and Douglas intervened to fight the e-mails’ release.

Kalani and Douglas have repeatedly denied accusations of an affair. The commissioners initially reviewed the e-mails because they were concerned about alleged financial and ethical problems in the management of the federally funded juvenile drug court program.

Kalani resigned from her position in March. Two days later she received a $69,150 legal settlement from the county’s insurer. The settlement was brokered after Kalani threatened to sue Kootenai County over an allegedly “false and defamatory” memo written by J.T. Taylor, who manages the District 1 Juvenile Detention Center, criticizing her job performance.

Idaho District Judge John R. Stegner ruled in July that the e-mail messages fall under the state’s open records law because they were written on county property and contain information “relating to the conduct or administration of the public’s business.”

Stegner rejected arguments by Douglas and Kalani that releasing the messages would infringe on their right to privacy and that the contents of the messages also were protected as employee records.

Douglas maintains that he fervently believes that these kinds of “personal communications” should be kept private, but he added in a prepared statement: “I don’t believe the victory I might achieve by fighting the battle further is worth prolonging the controversy and personal turmoil.”

Douglas said he and his wife came to a mutual decision to withdraw his appeal. “I wanted a court decision concerning public release of emails, because it is important that all officials and employees – public or private – be able to send personal correspondence in the workplace without fear that it may be disclosed to third persons,” he wrote in a press release. “In a free democracy, employees should be able to criticize their bosses, co-workers, judges, and public officials, without fear of retaliation in the event they become public.”