Although the tape of Brittany Zimmermann's 911 call may not be made public, an attorney representing a group of media organizations seeking the audio should get the chance to hear the recording, a judge said Wednesday.
Controversy has surrounded the case of the UW-Madison student's death after it was revealed that the Dane County 911 Center mishandled a call from Zimmermann's cell phone the day she was killed in her off-campus apartment April 2.
In May, a group of media organizations including The Wisconsin State Journal, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Channel 3000 sued Dane County in an effort to hear audio of Zimmermann's call and see a 40-page unedited internal review of how the 911 Center handled the incident.
At the core of the lawsuit is a debate between the media organizations' ability to obtain the documents through Wisconsin's open records law and the county's reasoning that making certain unreleased information public could compromise the ongoing homicide investigation.
After listening to both arguments, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess said releasing more details of Zimmermann's 911 call could pose a threat to the police investigation.
Before making a ruling, Niess also agreed that Greg Conway, an attorney for the media organizations, should listen to the audio and see the review so he can better direct his clients in future pursuit of their public records request.
