Read the most recent quarterly report from the attorney general April 2 that includes the most recent Laurie List or EES: https://indepthnh.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/april-2-2025-rsa-105-13-d-exculpatory-evidence-schedule-compliance-report-2-2.pdf

By Nancy West and Damien Fisher

NASHUA – Judge Charles Temple has dismissed the lawsuit against the attorney general filed seven years ago seeking to make public the names of law enforcement officers on the Laurie List for credibility or excessive force issues that were confidential at the time, saying it is moot because a 2021 law now makes that information public.

Until the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism started the lawsuit, the list of police officers whose professional records include acts like criminal convictions, documented lying in the course of their duties, or using excessive force, had been secret. Also known as the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, or EES, the list was supposed to be used by prosecutors to disclose potentially less than credible police witnesses to defense attorneys.

This week in Hillsborough County Superior Court South, Temple granted the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism, the ACLU-NH and several newspapers. In one sense, the ruling confirms what the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism argued, that the EES is a public record that cannot be kept secret. Temple’s ruling cites the 2021 Laurie List law, which makes the list available to the public, as the basis of his decision against the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism, which publishes InDepthNH.org.

“Simply put, both parties now agree that the EES is a public record that must be disclosed under the Right-to-Know Law, and the DOJ has, in fact, disclosed an unredacted version of it. In light of this present reality, the Court concludes that this matter is MOOT, and therefore it need not address whether the EES should have been made public under the Right-to-Know Law prior to the enactment RSA 105:13-d,” Temple wrote.

The lawsuit was filed in response to the Department of Justice releasing a redacted version of the EES in 2018. That list did not include the names of officers placed on the EES. The state tried to argue that the unreacted list was protected under New Hampshire’s right to privacy laws, and therefore not subject to RSA 91:A, the state’s Right to Know law.

The lawsuit eventually made its way to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which ruled in 2020 that the state law protecting the privacy of police personnel records does not bar disclosing the EES, as the state argued.

The lawsuit was remanded back to Temple, but put on hold as the legislature worked on amending existing state law to make the list public. The new law allows the Department of Justice to compile the list and make it public while also giving officers placed on the list the opportunity to challenge their placement in court.

The New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism kept the lawsuit going after the 2021 change in law, even as the other newspapers and the ACLU-NH dropped out represented by attorney Andru Volinsky. The DOJ argued before Temple that the lawsuit is moot because the 2021 law gave the public a list.

But, among the issues still unsettled was the question of whether or not the EES is an unconditional public record. Without that clarification, the state could change the law again and make the list secret.

“In arguing that this matter is not moot, the [New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism] suggests that ‘if the statute is repealed… then some party may argue the legislature will not have taken a position and the parties must re-litigate an answer to the [s]upreme [c]ourt’s remand question,’” Temple wrote.

Temple’s ruling makes it clear that the list is now a public record and subject to the Right-to-Know law thanks to the 2021 change in the law.

“That statute makes it clear beyond any doubt that the EES ‘is a public record’ that must be disclosed under the Right-to-Know Law,” Temple wrote.

Volinsky said: “While disappointed that the Court has now dismissed the Center’s efforts to obtain information about officers found to be dishonest, the Center takes pride in having started this effort that led to adoption of new laws concerning the release of information about these officers.  The parties in the litigation now clearly agree that information about dishonest officers is public information subject to Right to Know laws.”

Even now, however, the list is not completely public. There are 259 names on the list and 233 have been made public according to the attorney general’s most recent quarterly report in April. The redacted names on the list represent the officers who have legal challenges pending, according to the Attorney General’s Office. 

Additionally, although it wasn’t part of the lawsuit, InDepthNH.org has raised concerns about the 30 plus names that were removed from the list by a confidential attorney general protocol. And is concerned that the prosecutors are not responsible to notify the criminal defendants if a Laurie officer testified against him or her without disclosing that information in the past.

The list is named for the 1995 New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling that overturned Carl Laurie’s murder conviction. The lead investigator in Laurie’s case, Franklin Police Detective Steven Laro, was known to have serious credibility issues which were never disclosed to the defense. Under the legal precedent set by the United States Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors must disclose evidence that is favorable to the defendant. Withholding such evidence represents a violation of the defendant’s Constitutional due process rights.