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Green Pond Massacre: Jail House Calls To Be Released
Judge orders 65 calls to be made public…
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7 comments
As with other cases, I strongly disagree that private phone calls between inmates in a jail or prison should be fodder for consumption by the media and/or public, especially as in this case, where the inmate has yet to be convicted. Absent a particularly newsworthy aspect, such as the planning of a hit or an escape, this has no business in the media.
If Manigo is found guilty of these terrible crimes, I have no problem with him receiving the death penalty, but in the interest of human dignity, both for the inmate and their contacts, their privacy in phone calls should be respected.
Charged with murdering 6 people and you want to respect his phone calls?
Until proven guilty or a guilty please in court, it is a charge. Our system supposedly adheres to a doctrine of “Innocent until proven guilty”. As I noted, once convicted, I am fine if they chop his head off. Until then, any of us deserve the benefit of the doubt.
The way I see it is the calls were made on a government owned phone which makes any communication subject to FOIA.
Hi River. You bring up a point that I wonder about. Who pays for the call, and how much? Back in the early 1970’s, I believe about 73 or so, our Legislature or PSC, I don’t recall which, worked out a deal with the telephone companies in South Carolina. The phone companies wanted to jack the cost of local pay phone calls up from a dime, to $.25 per call. The state agreed but with exceptions. Phones located in courthouses, hospitals, jails, and prisons, (and possible other locations) would remain at ten cents per call.
Somewhere along the line, that apparently changed. Stories were rampant about local jails gouging prisoners and their contacts with ridiculous fees for local calls. Seems as though I read or heard of fees as high as $38.00 for a few minutes at some. Rumour had it that former Lexington County Sheriff Metts’ wife was the beneficiary of these inflated rates on calls from the Lexington County jail. IF that was ever truly the case, I wonder if it still is.
While I understand recording or monitoring these calls “for security purposes”, if the prisoner or their contact is paying such a ridiculous rate for the calls, it should not be fodder for media or public consumption absent a blatant public safety interest.
Observer, perhaps you are unaware, but inmates in jail are told multiple times (to include the words being posted by the telephone) that their calls are “subject to monitoring” and are “being recorded”. This message also appears (via audio announcement over the actual telephone in their hand) prior to their actual call ever being connected on the distant end. There is no possible way that inmates are unaware that their calls are being recorded and monitored. They consent to all of this by talking on the telephone while in jail.
I get that, but still do not believe that the content of their calls should be fodder for media or public consumption, unless it is something directly pertaining to public safety, such as ordering a hit on someone, or perhaps the planning of an escape.