Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas wants the public to believe his battle to block the release of office e-mails between a former subordinate and him involves a right to privacy and “is much more than about Bill Douglas.”

But that claim has worn thin after Idaho District Judge John R. Stegner ruled against Douglas for a second time in recent months.

Stegner ruled that the public has an unequivocal right to read the full contents of 889 e-mails between Douglas and Marina Kalani, the former coordinator for the defunct juvenile court program. In his decision, Stegner said: “E-mails between a supervisor and his subordinate are not personnel information; they are communications regarding the operation of the public’s business.”

And if the e-mails point to an improper relationship between the two? It is “unfortunately” the public’s business, too, said the judge, who ruled in April that the e-mail exchanges weren’t exempt from the Idaho open records law.

Rather than concede the point after two lower-court setbacks, Douglas plans to appeal Stegner’s decision to the Idaho Supreme Court.

If he does so, Douglas will prove he’s serving no one but Kalani and himself and call into question his judgment as the county’s highest law enforcement officer. The county policy manual is clear that “employees have no right to personal privacy when using the e-mail system provided by the county.” The judge’s decisions are equally clear.

Douglas should end the stonewalling. Kootenai County deserves a prosecutor who’s not distracted by his own political problems as major cases move forward this year, including the horrific Wolf Lodge Bay murder/kidnapping one.

The Spokesman-Review, of course, is heavily involved in this legal tug-of-war since this newspaper filed suit to force release of the e-mails. The e-mails could shed light on alleged financial and ethical problems in the management of the juvenile drug court program and, possibly, on Douglas’s relationship with Kalani.

The relationship between the two is important because Kalani quit her county employment under a cloud after the juvenile court abruptly folded. She then received a quick settlement for $69,150 on her claim that her problems had to do with county “errors/ omissions” – whatever that means.

Kalani, who spoke openly that the last two months of her job were “hostile and certainly difficult,” has said Douglas wasn’t the source of her problems.

She and Douglas, meanwhile, have denied repeatedly that they were having an affair. If the e-mails confirm their statements, they should be eager to release them.

Douglas has only himself to blame for this embarrassing episode. Not only did the county policy manual warn him about the public nature of office e-mails, but also several public and private officials have been snagged by inappropriate correspondence, including former Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher. It’s now common for Corporate America to monitor employee e-mails. Public employees should expect no special exemption to the widespread practice.

The fact that Douglas continues to battle to prevent the release of the e-mails raises questions about what he’s hiding.