Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; James M. Herrick, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether the Henry County Sheriff's office violated the Open Records Act in the disposition of Ann Cook's August 7, 2015, request for records relating to an assault case. For the reasons that follow, we find that the sheriff's office violated the Act by failing to issue a written response within three business days.
Ms. Cook's request, which was hand-delivered on the morning of August 7, read as follows:
Documents Requested: Any and all documents, papers, records, recorded statements and/or statements taken by any other means of any individual, including but not limited to Ann Cook, Jane Rosalee Guthrie, Ashley Renwick, Lindsey Kessinger;, [ sic ] photographs, notes and any and all other information contained in the file whether made by electronic means and/or recorded and/or transcribed and/or handwritten and/or otherwise obtained concerning the assault upon Ann Cook by Jane Rosalee Guthrie in the Henry County Courthouse in February, 2015.
The parties' accounts of subsequent events are substantially at variance. Henry County Attorney Virginia Lee Harrod, on behalf of the sheriff's office, states that when Ms. Cook returned on the third business day, Deputy Sheriff Dean Murray had not finished making redactions of "private personal information of citizens" but offered to deliver the records personally to Ms. Cook by the close of business that day, whereupon "Ms. Cook verbally refused to accept the records" on those terms. Ms. Cook, however, alleges that she was told the records "would not be ready for some time, if at all," and that in a subsequent conversation Deputy Murray told her the records had not been copied and would not be ready until the next day.
While "this office is not equipped to resolve a factual dispute" of this nature, 96-ORD-70, what is not disputed is that Ms. Cook returned on the morning of August 12, 2015, to retrieve the copies and was told that they were not yet ready. Also, it is undisputed that the sheriff's office issued no written response to Ms. Cook's request. We necessarily find that the sheriff's office committed a procedural violation of KRS 61.880(1) by failing to provide a written response to Ms. Cook's request within three (3) business days. 1 Furthermore, KRS 61.880(1) requires a public agency to provide a written explanation of the legal basis for withholding any public records. As the sheriff's office never produced an explanation for any redactions, or indeed a written response of any kind, we therefore conclude that both procedural and substantive violations of the Open Records Act occurred. 13-ORD-206.
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 proceedings.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 We do not agree with Ms. Cook's argument that a response issued on August 12 would have been untimely. A response mailed on the third day following the date the request is received, excluding weekends and legal holidays, is timely. 96-ORD-207 (citing KRS 446.030(1)(a)).
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