Still more — this time from the New York Times — on Jenna Garland, the press secretary for former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who is facing criminal charges for willfully violating Georgia's open records law.
The Coalition first posted an analysis of the case on May 15 and again last week.
https://www.facebook.com/419650175248377/posts/474592506420810?s=184659…
We followed up on a statement in the linked article indicating that it is not believed Garland will go to jail by speaking with the Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter who wrote the article, J. Scott Trubey. He confirmed the statement, though the reasons are vague.
We then contacted the National Freedom of Information Coalition to determine if the participating state open government coalitions knew of any criminal prosecutions in their states.
https://www.facebook.com/419650175248377/posts/474957973050930?s=184659…
The acknowledged champion of Florida's open government law, retiring Florida First Amendment Foundation President Barbara Petersen, advised us that two Florida officials had served jail time and been fined under the criminal provisions of Florida's law and one criminal case is on appeal.
The suggestion that appears in this article that Garland was speaking in a tongue in cheek manner when she advised a subordinate to "drag out" the response to an Atlanta Journal Constitution request, to be as "unhelpful as possible" and to provide the information "in the most confusing format possible" is, in a word, galling.
The fact that state and local Georgia agencies "regularly engage" in the practice of "delay and hope they go away" does not excuse it, or otherwise militate against prosecution, when an official leaves a paper trail that establishes willful noncompliance.
The 2017 audit of the University of Louisville Foundation verified similar written directives from high ranking university officials to Foundation employees responsible for responding to media requests for public records.
This conduct is inexcusable, and the imposition of civil penalties in Kentucky — up to and including the $756,000 in civil penalties imposed in 2016 on a still recalcitrant Cabinet for Health and Family Services — proves that they are not a successful deterrent.
Whether jail time is a successful deterrent to willful concealment of public records with the intent to violate the open records law — in Georgia or Kentucky — remains to be seen.
Georgia's criminal penalties have existed in that state's open records law since 2012. Criminal penalties have existed in Kentucky's open records law since its enactment in 1976 but have never, to our knowledge, been imposed or even sought.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=23117
A Georgia expert in white collar crime is quoted in the article:
"By bringing a criminal prosecution against Ms. Garland without having ever criminally prosecuted any other violation in the past, the [Georgia] AG's office appears to be unfairly targeting Ms. Garland and opening up a can of worm that will be difficult to close."
We say that there must be a first time for criminal prosecution or the statute becomes a paper tiger.
Open that can of worms.
