A wrongful-death settlement with an private Illinois prison contractor is a public record for the purposes of the state’s Freedom of Information Act, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled last month.Bruce Rushton, a reporter for the Springfield-based Illinois Times newspaper, asked the Illinois Department of Corrections for a copy of the settlement with Alfonso Franco’s estate after Franco died of cancer while incarcerated at Taylorville Correctional Center in 2012.Rushton sued the state in April 2017, almost two years after …