Media organizations seeking to make the 911 call from slain UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann public hit a roadblock Wednesday as a Dane County judge denied their motion to immediately release the tape.
Instead, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess approved a motion filed Friday by the city of Madison and Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard allowing them to hear the recording before a decision was made.
Last week, warrants detailing previously unreleased information, including contents of the 911 call that said there was audible screaming and struggling, were made public when a seal on the warrants expired and was never reinstated due to an oversight. Wednesday's hearing was initially intended to make a decision on if audio of the call would be released, until Blanchard and the city filed to intervene.
April Barker, attorney for the group of media organizations involved in the suit including the Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Channel 3000, expressed frustration in the delay and said her clients feel it is their responsibility as journalists to exercise the state's open records laws to better inform the public. Conversely, Blanchard and other city and county officials said releasing certain portions of the tape could hinder the investigation for a number of reasons.
I think it falls into three categories,"" Blanchard said. ""One is investigative detail, the second would be intimate privacy rights of the victim family and other families of '¦ murdered children and third due process rights of any accused person in connection with the homicide.""
Niess did rule to release audio of the 911 call from Zimmermann's fiancé Jordan Gonnering, who found her dead in their West Doty Street apartment, and four pages of 911 Center documents on how the investigation into Zimmermann's mishandled call was dealt.
Robert Elliott, a Milwaukee attorney representing the Zimmermann family, also spoke in court and said the family opposes making the 911 recording public.
""The Zimmermanns do have a very strong interest in the outcome of these motions and generally we support certainly the position of the state and the county,"" Elliott said on behalf of the family.
