CJ Griffin Quoted in New Jersey Monitor, “County Prosecutors’ Group Can Continue It’s Secrecy, New Jersey’s Top Court Rules”
CJ Griffin, partner and director of the Justice Gary S. Stein Public Interest Center at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C. was quoted in a New Jersey Monitor article titled, “County Prosecutors’ Group Can Continue It’s Secrecy, New Jersey’s Top Court Rules.” The article discusses a recent decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court decreeing that the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey is not a public agency, therefore it does not have to share its records with the public.
CJ Griffin, who filed a supporting brief in the case on behalf of Libertarians for Transparent Government and the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey, said, “This decision raises some red flags about how the ethics laws might be implicated and whether or not a private organization like this should be using government resources and government attorneys to defend it in court.”
Griffin said anyone looking to learn county prosecutors’ doings can still seek answers directly from the 21 prosecutors themselves.
“It requires more work. It’s going to take 21 requests and tracking it down and one agency saying: ‘I don’t have it,’ and the other one saying they don’t either, maybe lawsuits because they’re going to claim it’s a CPANJ record versus a county prosecutor record. I just have some worries there, especially in light of everything that just happened with the Warren County prosecutor,” said Griffin.
To read the full New Jersey Monitor article, click here.
