Request By:
Kirk Wool, # 263524
Bobby Moore
Cole Carter
Amy V. Barker
Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; Michelle D. Harrison, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
At issue in this appeal is whether Lee Adjustment Center violated the Kentucky Open Records Act in denying inmate Kirk Wool's request for copies of correspondence that he allegedly exchanged with a former employee of LAC between May 2007 and the present. In a timely written response, LAC denied Mr. Wool's request for these "records that were collected or compiled as part of an investigation or incident review" on the basis of KRS 197.025(1). Mr. Wool subsequently initiated this appeal. Upon receiving notification of Mr. Wool's appeal from this office, Cole Carter, Assistant General Counsel, Corrections Corporation of America, elaborated upon the position of LAC, correctly observing that our agency "has consistently opined that [KRS 197.025(1)] was intended by the legislature to give [C]orrections decisionmakers broad, but not unfettered, discretion with which to determine whether an otherwise public record should be withheld." Because this appeal presents no reason to depart from governing precedents, and Mr. Carter has thoroughly explained why disclosure of the requested correspondence would pose a legitimate security threat in his well-written response, this office declines to substitute its judgment for that of LAC.
Resolution of this appeal turns on the application of KRS 197.025(1), pursuant to which:
KRS 61.884 and 61.878 to the contrary notwithstanding, no person, including any inmate confined in a jail or any facility or any individual on active supervision under the jurisdiction of the department, shall have access to any records if the disclosure is deemed by the commissioner of the department or his designee to constitute a threat to the security of the inmate, any other inmate, correctional staff, the institution, or any other person.
This provision is incorporated into the Open Records Act by operation of KRS 61.878(1)(l), pursuant to which "[p]ublic records or information the disclosure of which is prohibited or restricted or otherwise made confidential by enactment of the General Assembly" are included among those records removed from application of KRS 61.870 to 61.884.
By enacting KRS 197.025(1), "the legislature has created a mechanism for prohibiting inmate access to otherwise nonexempt public records where disclosure of those records is deemed to constitute a threat to security." 96-ORD-209, p. 3; 03-ORD-190. In construing the expansive language of this provision, the Attorney General has recognized that KRS 197.025(1) "vests the commissioner [or his designee] with broad, although not unfettered, discretion to deny inmates access to records." 96-ORD-179, p. 3; 03-ORD-190. Application of this provision "is not limited to inmate records, but extends to 'any records' the disclosure of which is deemed to constitute a threat to security." 96-ORD-204, p. 2; 03-ORD-190.
Since its enactment in 1990, this office has upheld denials by correctional facilities of inmate requests and requests from the public based on KRS 197.025(1) for conflict sheets (OAG 91-136); psychological evaluations of inmates (OAG 92-25, 92-ORD-1314); facility canteen records (94-ORD-40, 96-ORD-209, 97-ORD-25); personnel records of correctional officers (96-ORD-179, 96-ORD-182, 96-ORD-204); facility deficiency reports (96-ORD-222); records confirming that inmates submitted to HIV testing (96-ORD-243); inmate honor dorm waiting lists (97-ORD-33); records documenting the procedures employed in an execution (97-ORD-51).
In our view, the analysis contained in 07-ORD-252, upon which LAC primarily relied in responding to Mr. Wool's appeal, is equally persuasive on the facts presented; a copy of that decision is attached hereto and incorporated by reference. More specifically, the letter(s) that Mr. Wool and the former LAC employee allegedly exchanged can "reasonably be characterized as mail that 'would create a threat to the security of the institution' within the meaning of 'prohibited mail' found at CPP 16.2, II.H.7." 07-ORD-252, p. 7. As Mr. Carter noted, those letters (which the inmate himself authored in 07-ORD-252), 1 like the letters at issue in this instance, "had been seized by [the agency's] internal affairs investigators." Inasmuch as the letters in dispute are properly characterized as "prohibited mail, " the instant appeal presents no reason to depart from the reasoning found on page 7 of 07-ORD-252:
As such, they can properly be classified as contraband as defined at CPP 9.6, II.B.3 insofar as they are "not authorized for retention or receipt by the inmate . . . ." Disclosure of the [. . .] letters composed by [Mr. Wool or the former employee] does not represent the threat to institutional security that disclosure of, for example, conflict sheets documenting disputes among inmates, daily rosters and time and attendance reports for corrections officers, or personnel records of those officers represents, but we are not prepared to say that the warden or his designee abused their discretion in denying Mr. [Wool's] request. As the Kentucky Court of Appeals noted, in a case dealing with prison contraband, "[The prison] environment has its own peculiar problems, in that the insignificant and unremarkable can, and do, become magnified in importance." Commonwealth v. O'Hara, 793 S.W.2d 840, 843 (Ky. App. 1990). While we may question the exercise of discretion in this case, we decline Mr. [Wool's] suggestion that we substitute our judgment for that of the warden or his designee.
Consistent with prior decisions of this office, and 07-ORD-252 in particular, this office affirms the denial of Mr. Wool's request on the basis of KRS 197.025(1).
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General should be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 As Mr. Cole noted, this case presents a "starker question" in that Mr. Wool requested letters that were sent to him in addition to the one letter that he apparently wrote and sent, as opposed to having requested strictly letters that he wrote. Thus, Mr. Cole persuasively argues, "there is no nuance here that necessitates reservation" with regard to invocation of KRS 197.025(1) as compared to 07-ORD-252.