A media organization on the frontline of open records legal battles, WDRB reports that Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate has awarded it $2000 in statutory penalties and $9,500 in attorneys' fees in a dispute with the Kentucky State Police.
The court's ruling turns on a finding that KSP willfully withheld the records in the face of overwhelming legal authority. The law provides that a "prevailing party" may be awarded penalties of up to $25 per day for each day public records are willfully withheld as well as the prevailing party's attorneys' fees.
The issue in this open records lawsuit is access to the underlying investigative records — often called internal affairs or use of force investigations — that support the decision to discipline law enforcement officers for misconduct.
The records access dispute in this case related to KSP's denial of WDRB's request for five investigative files and an internal affairs report involving trooper misconduct.
WDRB has received multiple favorable decisions from the attorney general's open records staff recognizing the public's right to these investigative records to confirm that KSP conducted a full and fair investigation into allegations of misconduct by troopers and imposed appropriate discipline. This line of decisions is firmly entrenched in decades of attorney general open records decisions.
As reporter Jason Riley notes, the same legal analysis resulted in a 2016 ruling in favor of Spencer County resident, Lawrence Trageser, by the OAG. KSP appealed that ruling to Franklin Circuit Court. Judge Wingate again ruled against the agency and in favor of Trageser's right to investigative files into trooper misconduct and discipline.
KSP thereafter appealed.
Both Trageser and WDRB await resolution of the legal issue by the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
Riley also points out that, unlike KSP, Louisville Metro Police Department regularly discloses internal affairs investigative files. Riley recently used LMPD internal affairs files in writing a story about police officers employed by that agency who were disciplined for misconduct.
https://www.wdrb.com/in-depth/lmpd-chief-says-community-needs-to-be-pro…
KSP takes the legally unsupportable position that the Investigative files are used for "administrative purposes only" and are therefore exempt from public inspection. Were a court to give *any* credence to this position, every public agency would follow suit, designating all sensitive public records as having been created for "administrative purposes only" and therefore exempt.
Similar clumsy attempts to avoid the application of the open records law — such as stamping a document "draft" or "confidential" — have been soundly rejected by the attorney general's open records staff and the courts.
But it remains KSP's position that it has a monopoly on the correct interpretation of the open records law. Everyone else, it seems, is either misguided or wrong.
Sadly, KSP's interpretation continues to cost taxpayers thousands of dollars.
