Walter Kuckes -- Minnesota open-records

What could there possibly be about a soft-spoken, gray-haired, retired psychiatrist that would make a roomful of Minnesota''s finest journalists jump to their feet in a standing ovation?

Meet Dr. Walter Kuckes, 70, a kindred spirit to tenacious reporters everywhere and a royal pain in the posterior to officials in Minnesota''s 87 counties.

It was back in August 1996 that Kuckes, newly retired from years as a psychiatrist for the federal prison system in Rochester, was sitting at his home on a lake in Avon, Minn., pondering his future.

"I don''t golf, I don''t fish, I don''t like to hunt," he noted. The future seemed, well, a little empty.

But on a trip to the county courthouse to pick up a brochure the state had put out on visitation issues in divorces, Kuckes stumbled upon the cause that would bring meaning and pleasure to his retirement. He discovered that some information that''s supposed to be open to the public is hard to get, and some resources that are supposed to be available to citizens aren''t.

Now, every reporter can regale you with tales of having to charm, cajole, pressure and irritate public officials to get to information that''s officially public.

But this was news to Kuckes. It was also the beginning of a crusade. He thought the visitation guide should be easily available, which it wasn''t. Soon he learned that "the judicial system is not very open to John Q. Public making suggestions."

But Kuckes is not a man easily dissuaded once he makes up his mind. He began visiting courthouses asking for that visitation guide, driving from county to county until he''d been to all 87 counties.

Read another article on Walter Kuckes at: http://www.judicialaccountability.org/articles/lawlibraryaccess.htm

© Copyright 2005.
All rights reserved by original source. This article is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in the The Media Giraffe Project''s efforts to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ''fair use'' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Media Giraffe Project has no affiliation with the originator of this article, nor is the project endorsed or sponsored by the article''s originator. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.