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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Courts - Kentucky State police must provide LJC with sex-offender database

This is an interesting story from Kentucky re access to public records that are maintained on governmental databases.

The ILB ran into this issue in Indiana several years when attempting to gain access to the electronic versions of the highly-formatted, MS Word-generated agreed orders entered into by the Department of Environmental Managment on a monthly basis. The other alternative was to download the documents, in html, locating them one by one using the search box on the IDEM website.

The Indiana Public Access Counselor at the time, Karen Davis, responded in her denial of the request:

Here, the record is available on the web in html format, which can be easily copied and pasted into and stored as a Word document. While it is probably easier and better for your purposes to receive a disk containing batched Word documents, you are not unable to accomplish this same effect using your own efforts, as I understand matters. * * *

In any case, it is my opinion that IDEM has provided copies of records in a digital format on its website, and therefore has made reasonable efforts to provide copies of records it maintains in its computers, as required under IC 5-14-3-3(d).

Also relevant is this ILB entry from March 9, 2009.

Here is the today's Louisville Courier Journal story, reported by Deborah Yetter:

A Franklin Circuit Court judge has ruled that the Kentucky State Police must provide The Courier-Journal with a copy of the agency's sex-offender registry database under the state's open records law.

Judge Phillip Shepherd's ruling Friday affirms an opinion last year from Attorney General Jack Conway's office that the material is public record -- which state police had challenged in an appeal to circuit court.

In an apparent rebuke, Shepherd ordered the state police to pay the newspaper's legal fees for the costs of the appeal, noting the agency had elected to appeal "against the advice of the chief legal officer of the commonwealth."

Failing to award costs to the winning side could have a "chilling effect" on public access to records, he said in an order and opinion.

"The threat of appeals by state agencies and the costs of protracted litigation is itself a disincentive for citizens and business to exercise their rights under the Open Records Act," Shepherd's opinion said.

Jon Fleischaker, a lawyer for The Courier-Journal, said yesterday he thought that the ruling was appropriate and that the newspaper is entitled to the database, which includes photos and other records of people convicted of sex offenses.

State police already post information about sex offenders on a state Web site, but the newspaper asked for the complete database, which would have allowed it to analyze details and more closely review information.

Jennifer Brislin, a spokeswoman for the state Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, which includes the state police, said the agency is "disappointed in the ruling."

She said the cabinet has not decided whether to appeal the ruling.

Fleischaker said he believes it's significant that Shepherd ordered state police to pay the newspaper's cost of the failed appeal.

The dispute began after the state police refused the newspaper's request for a copy of the database, arguing the request was "unduly burdensome." The agency also said the material was maintained exclusively in a "proprietary format" licensed by an outside vendor.

And it maintained that the agency already provides some of the information to the public through the state's sex-offender Web site, which people may search by offender name, city, county or ZIP code, according to Shepherd's opinion.

But Shepherd found none of those to be a valid reason for denying the newspaper's request. His opinion said state law is clear that agencies must provide electronic data to the public -- even if the material is already available in some form through a government Web site.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 19, 2009 04:52 PM
Posted to Courts in general