CLEVELAND, March 23 (UPI) -- A court-ordered evaluation of an alleged Cleveland serial killer was a public record and could be used by a newspaper reporter for a story, a judge has ruled.
The report was evidence in a 2005 sexual predator hearing for accused killer Anthony Sowell, concluding he was unlikely to re-offend. The judge in that hearing declined to label him a sexual predator, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.
Sowell was arrested again in October 2009 and is charged with killing 11 women whose bodies were found at his Cleveland home, the newspaper said.
A Plain Dealer reporter used the 2005 evaluation for a story published in November. Judge Shirley Strickland ordered an emergency hearing to determine how he obtained the report, and sent deputies to the paper when the reporter did not appear.
But when another judge told Strickland he provided the report to the newspaperman and it was an unsealed, public record, Strickland dropped her order for the reporter to reveal his source, The Plain Dealer reported.
