Open-and-shut case vs. secrecy

Court records sometimes are sealed for legitimate reasons — to keep a witness' private medical information out of the public eye, for example.

But too often, records are hidden away for spurious reasons — to render judges' or lawyers' divorce records private, for example, while the proceedings of ordinary people remain public.

A legal effort under way to keep secret the testimony of Cook County Commissioner Jeffrey R. Tobolski in a lawsuit involving alleged hiring improprieties strikes us as being in the second category. The judge should refuse to play along.

As reported by Steve Warmbir in …