On April 17, the Kentucky Court of Appeals issued a strongly worded opinion to the Kentucky State Police in which it rejected the agency's claim that production of uniform arrest and traffic citations — requested by a Courier Journal reporter in 2017 — was unreasonably burdensome.
http://opinions.kycourts.net/COA/2019-CA-000493.pdf
The 8 million-plus requested citations are stored in a record keeping system that is not configured for ease of redaction of protected information like social security numbers.
The court quoted from the circuit court's opinion declaring that "[a]gency inefficiency cannot restrict the citizenry's liberty interest in accessing information to promote government transparency among all levels of state government."
The Court of Appeals also quoted a landmark 2008 Kentucky Supreme Court opinion recognizing that an agency "should not be able to rely on any inefficiency in its own internal record keeping system to thwart an otherwise proper open records request."
Ultimately, the court concluded, "The scale of the request does not alter the character of the material requested." A public agency's duties are not excused by challenges of its own making.
"Just over a week before, a Tennessee court issued a "stinging rebuke" to the Knox County Sheriff for his "outrageous conduct" in subverting the state's open records law.
https://tcog.info/â¦/Conley-v.-Spangler-Memorandum-Opinion.pâ¦
The subject of that request, submitted by a University of Tennessee professor, was also arrest records. And the Knox County Sheriff's Office trotted out the same flimsy claim.
Production of the records would impose a burden on the agency due to the necessity of redaction.
In a 42 page opinion, the Tennessee court dismantled this and numerous other specious arguments advanced by the sheriff.
Emphasizing the importance of the public's ability "to monitor the activities shown by arrest records," the Court acknowledged its awareness:
"that the governmental entity is under an obligation to redact confidential information. However, that obligation cannot be used to prevent access."
Or, to quote an op-ed in today's Tennessean, linked below, it's no excuse that "everyone was just too busy to follow a law [they] decided was burdensome . . . because [they] never really got around to designing a system that wasn't burdensome."
The parallels between these cases — one in Kentucky, one in Tennessee, one week apart, both involving law enforcement agency obstruction of the public's right to know — are remarkable. The outcome in each is a full-throated endorsement of that right.
It's unclear what legal recourse is available to the Knoxville sheriff and whether he will pursue it.
The Kentucky Justice Cabinet, to which the Kentucky State Police answers, states that it will not ask the Kentucky Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals opinion but will "work with the Kentucky State Police to overcome existing technological challenges" in producing the citations.
https://www.courier-journal.com/â¦/court-rules-fâ¦/5159731002/
We applaud the Justice Cabinet.
We also applaud the Tennessean for expressly stating what the Justice Cabinet clearly understands:
"Public service is one of our country's highest, most honorable callings.
"Unfortunately, when an agency becomes a bureaucratic fiefdom focused on pleasing its own leaders . . . , it becomes susceptible to an arrogance of power. That's when bureaucrats lose sight of who they are and what they stand for."
And, we should add, who they serve.
