A Florida circuit court judge has rejected the Police Benevolent Association's reliance on Marsy's Law to attempt to block disclosure of the names of law enforcement officers involved in the highly controversial police shooting of Tony McDade. Officers claim McDade threatened them with a knife after attacking a neighbor.

That shooting resulted in McDade's death two days after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Florida voters passed Marsy's Law—which grants crime victims a number of new rights, including confidentiality—as a constitutional amendment in 2018.

The court ruled that Marsy's Law does not apply to police officers while they're on the job:

"The public has a vital right to evaluate the conduct of our law enforcement officers, who are empowered to arrest people and use deadly force. For this court to hold that on-duty law enforcement officers may use Marsy's Law to prevent the disclosure of their names would provide them with a protection not intended by the express purpose of that law."

Attorneys for the media, which challenged the denial, celebrated the short-lived victory.

"Today's ruling was a win for public oversight and police accountability. The court correctly found that Marsy's Law is not a vehicle to hide police action from the public."

The Police Benevolent Association immediately appealed the Florida circuit court opinion. The names of the officers involved in the McDade shooting will remain confidential while the appeal is pending.

Kentucky voters will decide the fate of Marsy's Law in the Commonwealth later this year when it appears on the November ballot as a proposed constitutional amendment.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/20rs/SB15.html

Although it's sponsor has offered repeated assurances that the language of the proposed amendment does not support an interpretation that shields police officers who respond to violence—or threats of violence—with violence while acting in the call of duty, critics remain unconvinced.

Whatever the sponsors' intentions, Kentucky law enforcement agencies might—as in Florida—invoke the general victims' privacy provisions of the law to impede access to the names of police officers involved in such shootings and delay access for years as the cases drag through the courts.

As we've said before, there's no way of knowing how Marsy's Law might be used in Kentucky until it is too late.