Information Leaks Prompt Questions in Kobe Bryant Case (original) (raw)

U.S.|Information Leaks Prompt Questions in Kobe Bryant Case

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/30/us/information-leaks-prompt-questions-in-kobe-bryant-case.html

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July 30, 2004

Secrecy has been one of the running themes of the Kobe Bryant case, through months of closed-door hearings, scores of unnamed witnesses and volumes of redacted documents with the name of woman who has accused Mr. Bryant of rape blacked out.

But now many people, from women's rights advocates to legal scholars, are questioning what the word secrecy means in a court system that has for the third time this year allowed confidential information to slip out, on its own Web site.

The latest misstep, on Wednesday, involved a document that included Mr. Bryant's accuser's last name. The document was only on the Web site for short time, perhaps half an hour. That was long enough, in a case being followed around the world, for repercussions to ripple out.

Sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday, for example, the text of the document was posted on a message board on the Court TV Web site, where it remained until it was discovered by the Web site's managers about 10 a.m., said a spokeswoman for Court TV, Ellie Jostad.

Ms. Jostad said the document was posted when the office was closed and that it was removed when the site's managers found it, but that by then about 250 people had posted responses and comments about it.

A court spokeswoman said Wednesday that a clerk had made the most recent error and that the court administrator intended to apologize to Mr. Bryant's accuser.

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