The potential lawsuit to open Kerry’s records gets a brief mention in Dan Kennedy’s blog. Kennedy argues that because the parties are okay with the impoundment, the records should stay closed. That is a strange way to treat public documents. The reason we keep public documents open it to ensure the courts operate fairly and treat everyone the same. To privilege some documents is quite a strange outcome unless there is an overriding public policy interest such as protecting a minor child or encouraging adoption. Protecting a minor child doesn’t mean protecting them from embarrassment from his or her child, it means protecting the child’s conditions from being public. In the case of Kerry, the children are adults and so the interest in protecting them would be gone.
The best strategy is to offer up the files to the press. Given the divorce was relatively amicable, I can’t see it being that big of a deal. The annulment was not friendly, but the divorce itself was a mutual decision.
That said, we don’t know for sure that the files are sealed. No one has checked that I can tell. They may well be, I simply don’t know. If I’m right and it was filed in Middlesex, the office wouldn’t answer the question. I do know the divorce did not occur in Suffolk County (Boston). There is also a chance it could have taken place in New York.
Thanks to readers and others for the background and the link!
Neither Kerry’s, nor Ryan’s, nor anyone else’s divorce records are anyone’s business but their own. Get over the nosiness.