FOI panel seeks to appeal limit on arrest information

The following article originally appeared in the Journal Inquirer. 

By Alex Wood
Journal Inquirer
Saturday-Sunday, August 11, 12, 2012

The state Freedom of Information Commission voted this week to ask the state Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a recent Appellate Court decision that would sharply reduce the amount of information about criminal arrests that can be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Colleen M. Murphy, the FOI Commission’s executive director and general counsel, said the commission voted 7-0 to ask the Supreme Court for certification to appeal the decision. The state’s top court isn’t required to allow the appeal.

The Appellate Court decision arose from a request by a New Haven Register reporter for a state police report on a serious assault that occurred in a vehicle on Route 8 in Derby in March 2008. After the defendant pleaded guilty in March 2010, the state police gave the Register the documents at issue.

But the two sides and the Superior Court judge who originally heard the appeal, Henry S. Cohn, agreed that the case, although moot, could be decided because a similar issue might arise in the future.

The FOI Act contains detailed provisions as to which records police are, and are not, required to release in response to requests from members of the public or the press.

In 1983, in response to concerns by the media that some police departments were restricting release of traditional police “blotter” information, the legislature adopted an additional provision requiring release of that information. The provision required release of the name and address of the person arrested; the date, time, and place of the arrest; and the charge.

In a 1993 case, in which the Journal Inquirer had sought a Windsor Locks arrest report, the state Supreme Court interpreted the 1983 amendment as limiting the information that had to be disclosed about an arrest. It held that the 1983 amendment overrode more general provisions of the law calling for disclosure of additional information.

The next year, the legislature changed the arrest-information provision to require that, in addition to the basic “blotter” information, police departments must disclose a report or news release on each arrest. The 1994 amendment also specified that any information beyond the basic “blotter” information was to be governed by the list of exemptions from disclosure that had always been part of the law.

The Freedom of Information Commission and some judges have interpreted the 1994 amendment as essentially overruling the Supreme Court’s 1993 decision in the Windsor Locks case.

But the recent Appellate Court decision held that the 1993 decision is still a binding legal precedent — and that the provision on disclosure of arrest information still limits what has to be released.

The wording in that provision referring to the general list of exemptions merely allows certain information to be removed from the report or news release that now has to be released along with the blotter information, the court ruled.

Click here for the article online.