Government Stay Quickly Denied in Prisoner Suicide Case
A federal appeals court has rejected a government request to delay disclosure of documents in connection with the death of a federal prison inmate.
The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the motion Tuesday within hours of receiving it, the Deseret Morning News reports. The government had sought more time so it could file a request for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Salt Lake City lawyer Jesse Trentadue is seeking the records because he believes his brother died in prison during an interrogation by FBI agents who mistakenly believed he was a suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The prisoner, Kenneth Trentadue, was a convicted bank robber imprisoned for a parole violation.
The government contends the prisoner’s death by hanging was a suicide, but it refused to produce records. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered most of the records released (PDF) in September and declined to reverse its ruling last week on a motion to reconsider.
