Opinion
Opinion By: Daniel Cameron,Attorney General;Marc Manley,Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
On March 24, 2021, inmate William Blanton ("Appellant") asked the Penitentiary to provide copies of two incident reports regarding an allegation that a Penitentiary employee discharged his taser and hit the Appellant. The Appellant alleged that two different employees had drafted incident reports in connection with this event. In a timely response, the Penitentiary denied the request for both incident reports under KRS 61.878(1)(h) because the incident was still under investigation. 1However, on appeal the Penitentiary provided the Appellant with one of the incident reports he requested, and therefore any dispute regarding that report is moot under 40 KAR 1:030 § 6. As for the other incident report, the Penitentiary now claims that it properly denied the Appellant's request because the requested record does not specifically refer to the Appellant by name.
KRS 197.025(2) provides that the Penitentiary is not "required to comply with a request for any record from any inmate . . . unless the request is for a record which contains a specific reference to that individual." KRS 197.025(2). To determine whether the Appellant is mentioned specifically in the report, the Office reviewed the incident report at issue. Although this Office may not disclose the contents of the report, KRS 61.880(2)(c), this Office's review of that record confirms that the incident report does not contain a specific reference to the Appellant. Rather, the report contains one sentence that documents that "an inmate was involved" in an altercation. Although this statement may reference the Appellant, it does not do so in a sufficiently specific manner under KRS 197.025(2). Therefore, the Penitentiary did not violate the Act when it denied the request under KRS 197.025(2).
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 shall be notified of any action in circuit court, but shall not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceedings.
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