Request By:
Major Bobby Stallins
Official Custodian
Kentucky State Police
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
Ms. Lonnie Rosenwald, a reporter for The Louisville Times, has appealed to the Attorney General pursuant to KRS 61.880 your denial of her request to inspect a public record in your custody. The record is described as a memorandum from State Police Detective Joe Cahoon to Lt. Colonel Don Powers regarding an investigation of an airplane landing at Murray, Kentucky. You denied the request by letter dated June 4, 1982 stating as the reason for the denial KRS 61.878(1)(h) which exempts from the mandatory requirement of public inspection "preliminary recommendations, and preliminary memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended."
At our request you sent us a copy of the described record. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(2) we have reviewed the record and will continue to keep it confidential.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
We find the described record to be a report made by a state detective to his superior officer and in the nature of an intra-office memorandum, a preliminary memorandum in which opinions are expressed along with a report of actions taken during an investigation of an incident. Records of such a nature are not mandatorily required to be made available for public inspection.
We do not believe that it is the legislative intent of the Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884, to inhibit the free communication between a public employee and his superior by mandating that every preliminary memorandum will eventually become public. In OAG 80-289 we said: "Records which are preliminary in nature when they are created do not lose their exempt status after final action is taken based upon the preliminary recommendations. They continue to be preliminary records." This is all the more true if the preliminary memorandum expresses opinions and recommendations of the writer.
It is the opinion of the Attorney General that you acted in compliance with the Open Records Law in denying inspection of the described record.
As directed by statute, we are sending a copy of this opinion to the requester who has the right to challenge it in court.