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Tom Lyons Columnist @tomlyonsht

When a bill passes with ease and is quickly signed by the governor, and the good intent is obvious and no corporate lobbyist seems to have a secret angle, the resulting law might well just be a rare good idea with no downside.

That is the way some have promoted a bill to help hide certain mug shots and arrest records from the public eye, and I get it. But Im not so sure.

The new law allegedly aims to help wrongly accused people avoid eternal problems with background checks that could otherwise forever portray them as arrestees and criminal defendants.

Good cause. A real problem is being tackled here. There are websites that not only post mugs of everyone arrested everywhere in the country, but also have a nasty business model to make it pay: They notify arrestees that the site will remove their photo for a fee.

Pay up, or the worst photo ever taken of you stays Google-ready for viewing by every potential employer, landlord or mother-in-law from now on.

That extortion-like practice should be outlawed. But the new law does something else instead.

Though most jail photos may show people who are later found guilty of something, major or minor, some are acquitted or their charges are totally dropped. And yeah, it is unfair that arrest records and their accompanying mugshots dont say so.

In those often unflattering jail photos, the innocent look just as guilty as everyone else.

So to help those people and maybe harm no one except sleazy website operators who make their living from something that smells a lot like blackmail and extortionthe new law automatically seals the otherwise easily found arrest records of those found not guilty or who have all charges dropped.

As advertised, the law will also somehow force websites that already have the photos to remove them without charging a fee.

That all sound flat-out good? If so, you are probably not a reporter.

Journalists doing legitimate news stories, including say, on candidates for local office, often have good cause to look up any previous encounters with police and the justice system. No matter how such cases turned out, they can be revealing.

Sometimes the key point of interest is why the heck the charges were dropped in such years-old cases. Sometimes, whats hidden when records are made hard to find is a story of well-connected arrestees who repeatedly had DUI or domestic violence charges that quietly disappeared.

Nothing to see here!

In such affluenza-related cases, defendants who already got too much protection arent the only ones happy to have the arrest trail swept away, too. Those in the justice system who make dubious decisions to drop charges will be equally glad if, years later, reporters never pick up that trail or ask questions.

Nearly every editorial futilely criticizing the bill said there is no reasonable basis for removing the records and photos of many not guilty arrestees. Too many are newsworthy.

Most such editorials use famous examples like George Zimmerman, who famously succeeded with a self-defense claim after he followed and then fatally shot a teenaged pedestrian named Trayvon Martin.

But Zimmerman is a poor example, in some ways. His arrest cant be obscured by any law. His trial was major news. The law cant help him become low profile now. And besides, he soon started loving publicity and adamantly seeking it.

There was a time, though, when not-guilty George Zimmerman could have become a better example. For a while, his arrest was little known and prosecutors had decided not to charge him. What if it had gone that way and there was no public outcry?

A law making that arrest disappear from the usual background searches could well have helped that zealous fighter of imaginary crime stay totally unknown. That would have been a great help to Zimmerman next time he went seeking a security guard job.Im glad no employer that hell ever talk to will be in the dark about his arrest and acquittal.

So, despite mixed feelings, I cant feel glad that a new state law helps all not-guilty arrestees keep their jail visits a secret. Too many of those stories deserve to be told.

Tom Lyons can be reached at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com

See more here:
Lyons: Unfair arrests cause unfair background checks. But is this law the fix? - Sarasota Herald-Tribune