Request By:
Mr. Charles F. Brown, Clerk
Oldham Circuit Court
105 East Jefferson street
LaGrange, Kentucky 40031
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Gerard R. Gerhard, Assistant Attorney General, (502) 564-7600
By letters of December 9, and 21, 1989, Eugene W. Gall, an inmate at the Kentucky State Penitentiary, has appealed to this office regarding your denial of his requests for copies of certain photographs that were apparently entered in evidence in a case in the Oldham Circuit Court, possibly known as John Bach v. Commonwealth.
KRS 61.880(2) provides, in part, that the Attorney General shall, upon request of one whose request to inspect public records has been denied, "issue an opinion stating whether an agency . . . acted consistent with provisions of KRS 61.870 to 61.884."
FINDINGS IN BRIEF
Court records are outside the purview of Open Records provisions, thus the Circuit Court Clerk did not act other than consistent with Open Records provisions in his responses refusing to furnish copies of certain Court records.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Eugene W. Gall, an inmate at the Kentucky State Penitentiary, asked, by request form dated December 1, 1989, and by a letter dated December 9, 1989, that you furnish copies of certain photographs apparently entered as evidence in a case in the Oldham Circuit Court, possibly known as John Bach v. Commonwealth. Such records are those of Kentucky's Court of Justice, and are in your custody as Circuit Court Clerk.
You denied Mr. Gall's request of December 1, 1989, by a disposition notation upon the request form, indicating the photographs sought involved a minor, and that absent some special need, the request was denied. By letter of December 9, 1989, Mr. Gall indicated he had a special need for copies of the photographs in question, because of litigation in the Lyon Circuit Court ( Gall v. Scroggy, 86-CI-026) regarding prisoner access to nudist magazines. By letter of December 13, 1989, you denied Mr. Gall's requests, citing an Order of the Oldham Circuit Court dated December 12, 1989.
By letters of December 9, 1989 and December 21, 1989, Mr. Gall appealed to this office under Open Records provisions, your denials.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Court records, which Mr. Gall's requests involve, are outside the purview of Open Records provisions. See KRS 26A.200 and KRS 26A.220. And see, Ex Parte Farley, Ky., 570 S.W.2d 617 (1978). See also, OAG 87-53.
Under the circumstances here involved, we do not find you acted other than consistent with KRS 61.870 to 61.884.
We make no specific answer to each of the four enumerated questions posed by Mr. Gall in his letter to this office dated December 21, 1989. We are not obligated to provide answers to the questions posed. Nonetheless, answers to them are effectively subsumed in our finding above.
Eugene W. Gall may have a right pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) to appeal the findings of this opinion to the Oldham Circuit Court.