Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; James M. Herrick, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The issue presented in this appeal is whether the Marion Adjustment Center ("MAC") violated the Open Records Act in responding to a November 30, 2012, open records request made by inmate Winston Wright. We find no violation of the Act.
Mr. Wright's request, received on December 3, 2012, was for copies of "records request[s] directed to Ms. Rice as acting R.D.A.P. administrator dated Set. 19, 12 + Sept. 20, 12 + Sept. 22, 12 that Ms. Rice refused to accept personally. Deposited requests in insti[tu]tional mail and Caseworker Edelen sent E-mail to someone in early Oct. for status check on same. Please include response(s)." These are the same records identified in a November 20, 2012, request by Mr. Wright that we addressed in 13-ORD-007. The MAC's response on December 10, 2012, pointed out that this was a "repetitive request."
This office has generally upheld the denial of a duplicate request for records. In 95-ORD-47, for example, we stated that an agency is not "required to satisfy the identical request a second time in the absence of some justification for resubmitting that request." Consequently, in 04-ORD-018, we found that a prisoner who had inspected his inmate file once was not entitled to view it again unless he could "explain the necessity of reproducing the same records which either already have been provided or have been inspected by him, such as loss or destruction of the records." We found in 13-ORD-007 that Mr. Wright had been provided all responsive records to the requests at issue in this appeal, and no justification for his resubmitting the request has been given. Accordingly, we find no violation of the Open Records Act. 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.
Distributed to:
Winston Wright, # 102720Amy V. Barker, Esq.Cole Carter, Esq.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 Also attached to Mr. Wright's appeal is a copy of an "Attachment 1" to a December 19, 2012, response to a request for copies of "unwritten rules." Since Mr. Wright has not included a copy of the request to which that response pertains, any attempted appeal of the December 19 disposition is unperfected and shall not be considered, pursuant to KRS 61.880(2)(a) and 40 KAR 1:030, Section 1.