Relatives of Hastings cemetery burials may finally get some closure

The decision by the Nebraska Supreme Court that the state must release the names of 957 people buried in the cemetery of a former psychiatric hospital cemetery in Hastings is long overdue.

The Adams County Historical Society, which receives requests each month from people trying to find information about relatives who might have been buried in the Hastings Regional Center's cemetery between 1889 and 1957, has been battling with the state for two years to get the state to release the names and death records of those relatives.

Joining in the effort with a "friend of the court brief" were groups including The Associated Press, the Nebraska Press Association, the Nebraska Broadcasters Association, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Association of Capitol Reports and Editors, the Radio-Television News Directors Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.

The state maintained that federal medical privacy law prohibits the release of the names, with the attorney general and local county judge agreeing.

The state's highest court agreed with the plaintiffs on Friday, however, indicating that while the people's medical records are protected, their names and records of their death are not.

We've urged the release of the names before, pointing out that keeping them secret only adds to the stigma that can be associated mental illness.

We agree whole-heartedly with the high court, but have to wonder what purpose withholding medical records from someone who died 120 years ago -- or even 52 years ago -- would serve. Could it be the state wants to avoid blame for neglect of those in its charge -- the same type of neglect that surfaced at the Beatrice center not that long ago?

Could it be that the state wants to avoid criticism, if not legal action, if relatives who died in the state's care did not have medical conditions that warranted their institutionalization?

Certainly all of us deserve privacy about our personal medical conditions, but that does not give authorities the right to hide their misdeeds behind federal privacy laws.

Descendants of those who died and were buried at Hastings have needed closure for a long time. Thanks to Friday's ruling, they may finally have it coming.