Dover Councilman Fred Neil’s recent commentary contains a significant error. He writes: “The legal system has a privacy curtain over its legal activities, keeping them away from the view of the public until trial.”
As he well knows as a former journalist, Delaware courts are open to the public. Anyone in Delaware can walk into a courthouse and request a file, unless it’s in the judge’s chambers. Anyone can walk into a hearing room, and sit down and watch the proceedings. The dockets of many civil cases, court calendars and judges’ rulings are freely available online.
As a former journalist, I routinely covered court cases long before trial by checking files and dockets. That is standard practice by reporters across the state, including the Gazette’s staff, who can attest that there is no such privacy curtain.
As a public official, Fred Neil has a higher responsibility to the truth, especially on something so easily fact-checked.
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