Request By:
Ms. Marion Tompkins
Chief Records Officer
Kentucky State Penitentiary
P.O. Box 128
Eddyville, Kentucky 42038-0128
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
Keith D. Phillips has appealed to the Attorney General pursuant to KRS 61.880 your denial of his request to inspect a particular public record in your custody. He describes the record in question as his complete institutional central file. He states that he is to go before the parole board shortly and he needs to be sure that there is no erroneous information contained in his file.
In your response to Keith Phillips, you stated that the reading of the entire inmate file by the inmate would not be in the best interests of the Kentucky State Penitentiary, the institution's employees or the inmate population. You further advised him that if he wanted copies of documents in his file which are open for inspection, he should specity the documents and make the necessary financial arrangements. Apparently a list of the documents available for inspection is posted at the Inmate Legal Office.
Opinion of the Attorney General
While the records of a state correctional facility are public records, the inspection of such records is limited by the provisions of KRS 61.872 and KRS 61.878. Furthermore, as we said in OAG 79-547, copy enclosed, the purpose of the Open Records Law is not to provide information but to provide access to public records which are not exempt by law.
An inmate's institutional file in all probability contains some information which may be inspected by the inmate or the public and some information which is exempt from public inspection. In addition, KRS 61.884 which provides that any person shall have access to any public record relating to him or in which he is mentioned by name is subject to the provisions of KRS 61.878. Thus a public agency may withhold from a person a document in which he is mentioned if the document comes under one of the exemptions to public disclosure set forth in KRS 61.878. See OAG 82-211, copy enclosed.
In his request to inspect, Keith Phillips never referred to any specific documents. He merely referred to his complete institutional central file. In OAG 76-375, copy enclosed, we said in part that if a person cannot describe the records he seeks to inspect with specificity, there is no requirement that copies of the records be delivered to him. In addition, "Blanket requests for information on a particular subject without specifying certain documents need not be honored."
In
Board of Education of Fayette County v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission, Ky. App., 625 S.W.2d 109 (1981), the court said in part that much of the information found in the personnel folders deals with items and facts of a personal nature and no public interest would be served by a complete disclosure. At page 111 of its opinion the court stated:
"From what we have said, we do not mean to imply that our open records statute has no application but rather, since we must treat these actions on a case by case basis, we are reversing and remanding this cause so that appellee may specify what information (and only such information as pertains to sex discrimination relevant to promotional practices) it seeks. Thereafter, pursuant to KRS 61.878(3) the appellant is authorized to 'sanitize' the records of matterial which is not germane to the action and in the event a dispute arises as to what is or is not pertinent to the litigation, then the circuit court, upon application of either or both of the parties, shall make the appropriate determination in accordance wtih KRS 61.882(3) . . . ."
It is, therefore, the Opinion of the Attorney General that your denial of the request to inspect the complete institutional file of an inmate was proper under the Open Records Law as requests to inspect personnel files must specify the particular documents within such files to be inspected.
As required by statute, a copy of this opinion is being sent to the requesting party who has the right to challenge it in circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5).