SCOOPS

A glance at noteworthy investigative reporting during the past week from the Web site of Investigative Reporters and Editors (http://www.ire.org).

Sexual Misconduct Problem for Oregon Officers: Ian Demsky of Willamette Week in Portland investigated the records of law enforcement and corrections officers in Oregon whose licenses had been revoked. Since 2002, about one-third of the revocations stemmed from sexual misconduct.

Danger of Mountaintop Mining: Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia continues his series on coal-mine safety with an article about the dangers of working at mountaintop-removal mines in Appalachia. Ward reports, among other things, that Appalachian strip mines account for 20 percent of the nation's strip-mined coal but over the past decade accounted for 75 percent of the nation's surface-mine deaths.

Texas Law Stymies Defense Attorneys: Jeremy Rogalski of KHOU-TV in Houston exposed an open secret of the Texas justice system: Texas prosecutors are not letting defense attorneys see basic documents, such as police reports, witness statements and DNA-test results, before trial. A Texas state law practically eliminates pretrial discovery, often leaving defense attorneys unable to prepare for court. Rogalski found that this has resulted in at least one wrongful conviction, which sent an innocent man to prison for 13 years.

Conflict of Interest in Sealed Guardianship Cases: In the ongoing series "Your Court, Their Secrets," investigating closed court records, Cheryl Phillips, Maureen O'Hagan and Justin Mayo of the Seattle Times uncovered conflicts of interest in sealed guardianship cases. "Only a small circle of lawyers practice in the guardianship field," they wrote. "Some say that to make a good living they cannot limit their practice to one side or the other: They must represent guardianship companies as well as the people subject to those companies' control." This leaves wards vulnerable to guardians who profit by working both sides of the system. This vulnerability is compounded by the fact that these court records are sealed. Since 1990, 398 guardianship files have been sealed in the state of Washington. The Times reviewed sealing orders for 376 of those files to find that 97 percent did not meet the legal standard for sealing a case.