Our view
By HDN Editorial Board
The Daily News is going to begin a new practice in its daily police report starting Tuesday. We're going to print the names of most people who are arrested.
We will identify people arrested on felony charges and on most misdemeanor charges. We're not going to publish the names of people who are ticketed for speeding. But if a person is arrested on charges of drunken or wreckless driving, that person's name will appear in the paper.
We believe the identify of people arrested constitutes news. Arrests are public events. Most people who are arrested become involved in the very public process of going through our judicial system.
The public can't monitor the behavior of its police and its court system without knowing how cases are handled.
We also figure people want to read about arrests.
Now that we're going to publish the names of arrested people, it is all the more important that we report the outcome of their criminal cases. We will make every possible effort to do that in a timely fashion.
If we miss an outcome, we hope that will be brought to our attention.
We want to remind everyone that people who are charged with crimes are merely the accused, rightfully or wrongfully. They are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
