Editorial: Tragedies call for openness

Friday, April 7, 2006 | 7:12 a.m.

Last summer a 2-year-old Las Vegas girl, Adacelli Louise Snyder, was found dead in her home following a 911 call placed by her mother. The county coroner ruled the death a homicide and listed malnutrition and neglect as the causes.

Because Child Protective Services, a division of the Clark County Family Services Department, had provided care to the girl and counseling to her parents from July 2003 to June 2004, this newspaper requested to see the agency's records about this family. Citing state and federal privacy laws, the county refused the request. A District Court judge upheld the county after the Las Vegas Sun filed a lawsuit.

County Manager Thom Reilly, however, said he believed the law should allow for more openness. The county then requested District Court to clarify how much information the county could release under state law about either their former or current child clients in the event they died.

District Judge Douglas Herndon's ruling this week allows for a little more information to be made public, such as birth and death dates and, if applicable, as in Adacelli's case, why a Child Protective Services case pertaining to the child was closed.

But the ruling stops short of allowing public inspection of the actual records kept by the county, which could explain in far greater detail the role of Child Protective Services in the child's life and why services were withdrawn.

We agree with Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, who said in response to the ruling, "I don't see any reason to keep this information confidential."

The 2007 Legislature should change the law regulating information that can be released. In the event of a child's death, all of the actual records pertaining to the case should be opened for public review.