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Court bars release of vince foster death photos Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Court Bars Release of Vince Foster Death Photos
Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:31 AM ET
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that four death-scene photographs of Vince Foster, the deputy White House counsel who killed himself in 1993, should not be released under the freedom of information law.
The top court agreed with government arguments that the photographs taken by the police were exempt from disclosure because their release would cause an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy for Foster's surviving family members.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Foster family's privacy interest outweighed the public interest in disclosure.
"Family members have a personal stake in honoring and mourning their dead and objecting to unwarranted public exploitation that, by intruding upon their own grief, tends to degrade the rites and respect they seek to accord to the deceased," he wrote in the 17-page ruling.
Foster's death was investigated by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who also investigated former President Bill Clinton over the Whitewater land deal and whether Clinton lied about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Starr and several other investigators determined Foster killed himself on July 20, 1993, at a park near Washington. The investigators concluded Foster had been depressed and his death stemmed from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
Foster's death triggered a number of conspiracy theories, spread by Clinton's opponents but rejected by investigators, of murder and a government cover-up. Foster was a law partner in Arkansas of former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, now a U.S. senator from New York.
California attorney Allan Favish filed the lawsuit under the freedom of information law for the photographs.
A U.S. appeals court ordered the release of four of 10 requested photographs. They showed Foster's right hand holding the gun, two of Foster's right shoulder and one of the top of his head from a distance through heavy foliage.
The Justice Department, on behalf of the office of independent counsel, and a lawyer for Foster's widow and sister, appealed in opposing release of the photographs.
The Justice Department said there is no general public interest in further investigating unsubstantiated or already refuted allegations of government misconduct.
It said a number of investigations have resulted in the disclosure of thousands of pages of evidence and analysis, and more than 100 photographs associated with the suicide.
The justices overturned the appeals court ruling. Kennedy said there have been five investigations into Foster's death.
A number of news media groups supported Favish, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Radio-Television News Directors Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.
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