Former Claremont cop seeks to keep files secret
Nov. 14—CONCORD — A former Claremont police officer asked the state's highest court Tuesday to block the release of the internal affairs investigations that led to his negotiated resignation from the force in 2006.
Jonathan Stone, now a state representative and city councilor, is arguing that he and the city reached a binding contract that kept these details about him confidential and the court should enforce it, according to his lawyer, Peter Decato.
"My feeling is there is a collision here between the impairment of a contract and the right to know," Decato told the Supreme Court during oral arguments.
If the reports from the investigation are released, Decato said, "Allegations will be disclosed to the public, they will embarrass and humiliate my client and a bunch of other people in Claremont if my client decides to defend himself."
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and the New Hampshire Union Leader argued the settlement allowed for the documents' release in the future, if the courts ruled differently or the relevant state law changed.
In May 2020, the Supreme Court issued a pair of decisions that more broadly interpreted New Hampshire's Right-to-Know Law in favor of releasing more information to the public.
"There was not blanket confidentiality," said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director for the ACLU-NH.
Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald summed up the legal question that the court faced in this matter:
"Sitting here today, is the contract enforceable given the current state of the law?" MacDonald said.
In October 2022, Superior Court Judge Martin Honigberg ruled against Stone and ordered the city to release internal affairs reports and other documents in the case.
In an 18-page ruling, Honigberg rejected Stone's demand for privacy, noting the documents do not reveal intimate details of his life, "but are concerned with 'information relating to his conduct as a government employee while performing his official duties and interacting with (members) of the public.'"
Stone appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
Decato said as part of the settlement city officials agreed to destroy the documents in Stone's case, but they never did.
"They want to turn the clock back" and release the records now in violation of the agreement, Decato said.
The Supreme Court should adhere to the 1993 ruling in Union Leader v. William Fenniman that held these documents to be secret at the time and should not be undone by more recent decisions, he argued.
"Under today's law it gets disclosed, but I don't think it should be disclosed because that's a retroactive reading of the law," Decato said. "There were expectations back in 2006."
The 2020 decisions expanding access to information about public officials came in the cases of the Union Leader v. Town of Salem and Seacoast Newspapers v. the City of Portsmouth.
Bissonnette told the court that Stone's status as an elected official "only magnifies the interest in disclosure."
During a losing reelection campaign for his council seat, Stone told the Claremont Eagle Times last month that he was being singled out because of his politics.
"This is a political attack on me," said Stone, a three-term city councilor. "You have councilors that had background issues, restraining orders, and you never see their names mentioned."
"You have police officers who are still having problems, and you don't see their names. I'm the only one I know of in the state of New Hampshire who is politically attacked for being a Republican city councilor and now a state representative."
Stone lost his Claremont Ward 3 seat by six votes to Jonathan Hayden last week. A hand recount on Tuesday found no change in that election result.
In November 2022, Stone won election — by three votes — to one of two House seats representing the city and eight neighboring towns.
After a recount, his winning margin increased to 14 votes.
He is a member of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
