File this under "Believe It or Not."

The Commonwealth's Attorney for the 34th Judicial District recently filed a motion for a protective order in the Whitley Circuit Court on behalf of the Williamsburg Police Department from an allegedly "endless stream of open records requests."

The Commonwealth's Attorney argues that requests for "salary information, personal contact information, personal cell phone numbers, audits, and case information" purportedly submitted by detectives on behalf of criminal defendant Anthony Hester to the police department "are not remotely relevant to this action," are intended to "bog down" the department, and impose an unreasonable burden.

Hester's attorneys respond that, "to date, the defense team assembled in this case has not filed a single open records request to any police agency in Kentucky. If any open records requests have been filed with the Williamsburg police department those requests have not been on the behalf of Anthony, nor have they been filed with the defense team's knowledge."

Further, they question the propriety of the Commonwealth's Attorney's representation of the Williamsburg Police Department "in responding to any open records requests, or filing the motion at issue in this case. The Williamsburg Police Department is properly represented by either a departmental attorney or the city attorney for Williamsburg."

Among their other objections, they also assert that injunctive relief is not available under the open records law for the purposes described in the Commonwealth's Attorney's motion for a protective order.

One thing is clear. The Williamsburg Police Department is an independent governmental unit subject to specific legal obligations set forth in the open records law, including the duty to produce for public inspection public records that "are not remotely relevant to [Hester's criminal] action."

Relevance, or the lack thereof, is not a basis for denying *any* open records request *ever*.

If the Williamsburg Police Department believes it can prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that a single request or series of requests submitted by an individual is (are) unreasonably burdensome, as contemplated in the open records law at KRS 61.872(6), it is up to the police department to deny the request or requests on this basis and build the case.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=23060

In doing so, the police department should bear in mind that "a public agency refusing to comply with an open records request on this unreasonable-burden basis faces a high proof threshold since the agency must show the existence of the unreasonable burden 'by clear and convincing evidence.'"

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ky-supreme-court/1387319.html

It is equally clear that the police department's attempt to hide behind the Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney is not a legally defensible option.