"The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday ruled against a Mobile media outlet seeking law enforcement files related to a fatal police shooting, sparking a fervent dissent from the court's own chief justice regarding the state's public records law.

"The court upheld a Baldwin County ruling in the case, in which Lagniappe Mobile sued for investigative records from the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office related to the 2017 shooting of motorist Jonathan Victor. The high court ruled the records Lagniappe sought, including dash and body camera footage from the shooting, are all exempted from open records law due to their 'investigative' nature, even though the investigation in the shooting has been closed.

"Chief Justice Tom Parker decried the ruling in a scathing dissent, writing he could not 'sit idly by" as the court "shrinks a legal right of the people of Alabama to the vanishing point.'

"'With one sweeping stroke, today's decision spells the end of public access to law-enforcement records that are connected in any way to an investigation,' Parker wrote. 'After today, as to law enforcement agencies at least, the statute might as well be titled the Closed Records Act.'

"'Today the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling that will greatly curtail efforts to hold law enforcement accountable through open record requests,' said Alabama Press Association General Counsel J. Evans Bailey. 'The Court's decision in Something Extra Publishing v. Mack, et al. has put photographs, videos, documents, 911 calls, autopsy records, and correspondence related to any criminal investigation behind a shroud of secrecy based on an expansive reading of the investigative privilege statute. The opinion appears to say these records are to be hidden from the public regardless of the source or whether the investigation is concluded.'"