While sitting in his Dane County courtroom last week, I didn’t hear Judge Richard Niess give a single good reason in support of his decision to let local authorities continue to withhold the recording of murder victim Brittany Zimmermann’s mishandled 911 call.
As I’ve noted elsewhere (“Judge Backs Secrecy on Zimmermann 911 Call,” TheDailyPage.com, 12/22/08), Niess’ ruling was wildly at odds with his reasoning. He observed that local authorities have on this matter been completely untrustworthy, even in their arguments for suppressing the recording. Then, in a stunning display of pretzel logic, he came around to declaring that he had decided to trust them.