Judge to rule on Item request to let public view Giovanni search information

LYNN – A District Court judge will announce Wednesday if additional information in the search for missing Giovanni Gonzalez should be made public.
Judge Michael Lauranzano heard from lawyers for The Daily Item and The Boston Globe explain why Lauranzano’s Dec. 4 order impounding, or sealing documents related to a Nov. 28 search conducted as part of the Gonzalez investigation should not remain hidden from public view.
?This case has been out in the public with the police and the boy’s mother appealing to the press for help. I don’t think anyone would deny this is public record,” said Item attorney Peter J. Caruso.
Globe attorney Carol Head told Lauranzano “factors here weigh strongly against impoundment. Search warrant applications are presumptively public.”
Five-year-old Giovanni Gonzalez was reported missing Aug. 17 by his mother after she went to the boy’s father’s apartment to pick him up after a weekend visit and could not locate him.
Ernesto Gonzalez told police he had not seen his son since the previous week. Police charged him with child endangerment a day later and launched a search for the boy.
The Item reviewed court documents detailing two searches of Ernesto Gonzalez’ apartment and reported Aug. 22 that investigators found traces of blood on a mop and other objects in the apartment. They subsequently discounted any link between the blood and the boy’s disappearance but Gonzalez, in a Nov. 26 published interview, said he killed the boy, dismembered him and tossed the body parts in downtown Dumpsters.
Prosecutors refused to say where they conducted their search two days after the confession but a Brightwood Terrace resident who lives opposite Gonzalez’ apartment said police swarmed through the residence in the wake of the confession and focused their attention on the bathroom.
Ernesto Gonzalez pleaded innocent in Superior Court Dec. 11 to charges of willfully misleading police and parental kidnapping.
?Prosecutors have said since the beginning of the investigation that the focus was on Ernesto Gonzalez, saying he was the only party of interest in the case, and that has not changed,” Item Managing Editor Henry J. Collins said. “With the elder Gonzalez in jail having been indicted by a grand jury, we firmly believe the evidence collected Nov. 28 should be released to the public. We all hope that Giovanni Gonzalez will be found safe, but given the fact the district attorney?s office has received this impoundment it only leads to speculation. The public, which has been asked numerous times to assist in this case has the right to know what was found in that apartment, and what it means to the case.”
Assistant District Attorney Jean Curran said the Gonzalez investigation is ongoing. She told Lauranzano Monday that the impounded search documents contain information not released to the public. She continued to say the district attorney?s office did not want this information released until after a trial.
?We are concerned for the rights of the defendant as we go forward. We are trying to preserve the sanctity of the defendant’s right not to have all information out in the public,” Curran said.
But Caruso said the initial decision to impound the Nov. 28 search request and the search findings violates three of the five conditions prosecutors must meet under state law before they throw a cloak over public information.
He said Lauranzano did not hold a hearing on the DA’s impoundment request prior to issuing the order; did not issue a finding of fact and did not set a time limit on the impoundment order.
Gonzalez’ attorney, Lawrence McGuire, condemned Item and Globe efforts to lift the impoundment, saying, The Globe reporter, who wrote about the alleged confession, thrust herself into the investigation and had used yellow journalism.