Flats jurors may get to go public

Ruling revives hopes that story can be told

Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 16, 2006 at midnight

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They can't break their silence yet, but the Rocky Flats grand jurors, who have been barred for 14 years from revealing what they learned during their investigation of the bomb plant, had their hopes of someday talking publicly revived by an appeals court Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled last year that jurors couldn't speak about the case and that their reports and testimonies were forever sealed. The ruling came in response to an unprecedented civil action filed by jurors demanding that the public be allowed to know what they learned about the nuclear weapons facility when they met from 1989 to 1992.

Matsch told the jurors that while he was sympathetic to their cause, he didn't have the authority to allow them to break with the federal rule of criminal procedure, which seals grand jury proceedings.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision Thursday and remanded the case back to Matsch. In a 39-page opinion, the court explained that Matsch had the authority to provide an exception to the rule, if he wanted to.

The grand jurors' lawyer, Jonathan Turley, was elated by the development. He said the jurors hope that Matsch, having now been given clear authority to reverse his decision, will do so.

"After 10 years, they are still here, trying to disclose the reason they took their historic stand in the Rocky Flats grand jury room," Turley said of his clients.

"The government is reviewing the court's decision and we have no further comment," said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver.

Rocky Flats, which occupied 6,400 acres north of Arvada, produced triggers for nuclear weapons until it was shut down more than a decade ago. The FBI opened an investigation in 1987 into possible crimes against the environment at the plant, which had been operated by Rockwell International from 1975 through 1989.

In 1989, the grand jury was empaneled. For 2 1/2 years, jurors heard from more than 100 witnesses and pored over hundreds of boxes of evidence.

In 1992, prosecutors reached a plea deal with Rockwell, which pleaded guilty to five felonies and five misdemeanors. The company agreed to pay $18.5 million in fines.

That year, the grand jury issued a report, but now-retired Judge Sherman G. Finesilver refused to make most of it public.

Eighteen members of the grand jury filed a petition in 1996 "seeking permission to release information and freedom to speak publicly about their experience as grand jurors and their perceptions of the conduct of government employees and the Department of Justice lawyers," according to court documents.

" I can tell you it's worth the fight," Turley said. "Their testimony is consistent and it is very troubling."

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