What If Judge Snelson OK's the Release of Mayor Dwaine Caraway's Police Records?

[Update at 3:52 p.m.: Jim sends word that Mayor Dwaine Caraway has just taken the stand during the evidentiary hearing now expected to stretch into the evening. More to come.]

[Update at 1:41 p.m.: Jim reports that Judge Teresa Guerra Snelson has denied Caraway's request to extend the temporary restraining order. More to come.]

Jim's at the courthouse for that 1:30 evidentiary hearing during which Associate Judge Teresa Guerra Snelson will rule on Mayor Dwaine Caraway's request to keep secret those police recordings related to the January police visit to his and state Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway's home. Also in attendance, Jim reports: Mayor Dwaine Caraway.

Reports Jim, there's a "big bunch of lawyers setting up" shop; media guesstimates put the "tight-lipped crew" on The News's payroll. Says Jim, who's surrounded by several News writers, via the text: "They asked to move the hearing to a courtroom with audio/video so they can show a DVD." Speculates Schutze: "Dwaine at council, talking about it?" And by it, he means this.

Several Friends of Unfair Park have asked today: What happens now? Well, it could be one of several things. Such as: Snelson could extend the temporary restraining order another two weeks, in which case we do this all over again. Or: She could decide after the hearing to grant attorney Michael Payma's request for a temporary injunction, which would seal the records till a full trial on the matter. Or: She could decide that the Texas Attorney General's decision to release the records was the right decision after all.

Which doesn't mean the City Attorney's Office would immediately make them available: In the amended TRO that follows, signed by the judge last week, she notes that the TRO signed March 8 extends for 14 days and expires "at the end of the calendar day," meaning midnight tonight. Which would give Caraway's legal team time enough to head to the Dallas Court of Appeals to file an interlocutory appeal, as well as an application for a stay -- the appeals court's version of a TRO, more or less. That, or the city turns over the docs to media tomorrow morning.

Also on the other side you'll find The Dallas Morning News's brief in which its attorneys make the case for the media's "justifiable interest in the lawsuit."

Modified TRO in Caraway CaseDMN Case for Intervening