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Balancing that, Frank said, is a district attorney's professional obligation not to trash the potential criminal defendant outside court, and the public's interest in promoting thorough investigations.

"I'm a public official. It would make me feel good for the public to know all the reasons for the decisions I made," Frank said. "But I don't think that overrides the interest of the public in having criminal investigations not be public record. It's supposed to be an exercise in getting the truth."

But citizens in a democracy have a duty to evaluate the performance of their elected officials, and that's hard to do without access to the facts, said Asheville lawyer Gary Rowe.

"Under the guise of 'investigation,' you can pretty much close those documents forever," said Rowe, who represented Asheville's daily newspaper and a television station in a failed effort to get an SBI report on a fatal jail fire that resulted in no criminal charges.

"When you have an ongoing investigation, clearly certain aspects need to be kept secret," Rowe said. "Once the investigation is closed, though, there's no real reason for the public to be denied access to the records. Protecting the public good also means disclosing, at the appropriate time, what the investigation showed."

Leaders of North Carolina's General Assembly seem unlikely to change the law to require greater openness in police shootings or public corruption cases. Senate leader Marc Basnight said this week that he thinks it's appropriate for the facts to come out later at trial -- assuming there is one.

And Attorney General Cooper, who championed public records as a state lawmaker, would not discuss whether the law should require public disclosure of the basic facts in police shootings.

"That's not something we really can get into right now," said his spokeswoman, Noelle Talley.

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