PORTLAND (AP) — Law enforcement shouldn’t be using a special exception to the Freedom of Access Act to deny requests for 911 transcripts, a lawyer for the Portland Press Herald said Monday. But state prosecutors argued that releasing transcripts to the public can harm investigations, color witnesses’ memories and taint jury pools.

Attorneys for the newspaper and for the state clashed before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court over whether 911 call transcripts in active homicide investigations should be released under the state’s sunshine law.

“There’s a reasonable possibility that public release of the transcripts prior to trial would interfere with a law enforcement proceeding, interfere with the selection of an impartial jury and constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” Deputy Attorney General William Stokes told the justices.

But Sigmund Schutz, the newspaper’s attorney, said the exception cited by prosecutors under the sunshine law wasn’t justified and runs the risk of being applied too broadly.

“Our view, the newspaper’s view, is that it’s not just an E-ZPass that you can fly through going down the turnpike,” he said.

A lower-court judge upheld the denial of the newspaper’s request to release transcripts from 911 calls before last year’s fatal shootings of two teenagers in Biddeford. James Pak, a Biddeford landlord, is charged with fatally shooting Derrick Thompson, 19, and his girlfriend, Alivia Welch, 18.

Under Maine law, 911 transcripts, not the audio recordings, are to be made available under the Freedom of Access law. But there can be exceptions for “intelligence and investigative records.”

Justices focused Monday on whether there was a factual basis for concluding there’s a “reasonable possibility” of harm coming from the release of 911 transcripts, and on how the state would go about making a case-by-case determination as to negative consequences of releasing 911 transcripts.

Several organizations including The Associated Press, Committee for Freedom of the Press and New England First Amendment Center submitted a legal brief supporting the newspaper’s stance.

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