Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
This matter having been presented to the Attorney General in an open records appeal, and the Attorney General being sufficiently advised, we find that Kentucky State Reformatory did not violate the Open Records Act in denying Douglas Runyon's December 16, 2011, 1 request for the "handwritten incident report from KOMS regarding DR for incident on 9/22/11, convicted 12/2/11." KSR promptly responded to Mr. Runyon, later clarifying its position as follows:
On January 10, 2012, Sr. Captain Jay Whitfield spoke with Officer Sparrow and Officer Sparrow stated that he did not do a "handwritten" incident report for the disciplinary report you received on 09/22/11. Officer Sparrow did review the disciplinary report that was issued and stated that it is true and accurate.
We find no specific legal authority requiring the creation of a handwritten incident report supporting the creation of a disciplinary report and therefore affirm KSR's denial of Mr. Runyon's request based on the record's nonexistence.
Corrections Policy Number 15.6 provides, at part C.1.
1. The Disciplinary Report
2. The disciplinary report shall include:
3. Upon completion of the disciplinary report it shall be submitted to the shift supervisor or other designated supervisor for a review.
This policy imposes no requirement on the reporting employee to generate a contemporaneous handwritten incident report. In this instance, KSR explains, "CO Sparrow verbally reported information to the person who typed the disciplinary report and verbally confirmed that the information in the typed report was correct."
This office addressed a nearly identical situation in 11-ORD-091. There KSR denied the existence of "handwritten reports or statements by all correctional officers involved in [an] incident" that resulted in a disciplinary report. We affirmed. A copy of 11-ORD-091 is attached hereto and incorporated by reference. As in that decision, there is no statutory authority cited, and none located, that requires the creation of the requested handwritten report. This being the case, we affirm KSR's denial of Mr. Runyon's request for the reasons set forth in 11-ORD-091. Accord, 12-ORD-037.
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.
Distributed to:
Douglas Wayne Runyon, # 173076Marc AbeloveLinda M. Keeton
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 In its supplemental response, KSR substantiated compliance with the five day response requirement found at KRS 197.025(7), explaining that Mr. Runyon's request did not reach the open records coordinator until December 21, 2011, and that there were two intervening legal holidays as well as a Saturday and Sunday that must be excluded from the five day calculation. Its December 27 response was therefore timely.