Transparency plays a critical role in building trust between the police and the community. When members of the public trust the police, they are more likely to follow their commands, cooperate with criminal investigations, and even advocate for more funding for police. When police resist transparency, community trust is seriously undermined. Secrecy also makes it harder to hold police departments accountable and assure that they are complying with the law and meeting the high standards that we set for them. This is why we have been involved in dozens of cases involving police ...
The New Jersey Supreme Court has granted an OPRA requestor's Petition for Certification and agreed to hear an appeal in Libertarians for Transparent Government v. New Jersey State Police.
The question the Court certified is:
"Does section ten of the Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-10, require disclosure of the name of a state trooper listed in the Office of Professional Standard’s annual report to the Legislature as having been terminated for misconduct?"
For background, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-10 states that personnel records are generally exempt under OPRA, but provides ...
The following article was posted on Northjersey.com on November 9, 2016 edition. It describes an argument before the New Jersey Supreme Court in one of the most consequential Open Public Records Act cases in State history. Our partner Sam Samaro is lead counsel for North Jersey Media Group and our firm spearheaded the appeal.
In one of the biggest legal battles over government transparency in New Jersey, the state Supreme Court is poised to determine how much information the public receives in the hours and days after police officers use fatal force.
A key question in the case is whether ...
In enacting OPRA, the Legislature created two exemptions for police records. The first exemption is the “ongoing investigation exemption.” N.J.S.A. 47:1A-3(a). For that exemption to apply, an investigation must be ongoing and the police agency must prove that release of the records would be “inimical to the public interest.” Even if the police do prove that releasing the records while the investigation is ongoing would be harmful, ultimately the records must be released after the investigation concludes.
OPRA’s other exemption, the “criminal investigatory ...
The following article was authored by Pashman Stein Partner Sam Samaro and appeared in the New Jersey Law Journal on October 29, 2015.
In March of 1991, a Los Angeles resident by the name of George Holliday noticed some commotion outside his apartment. He grabbed a camcorder, went out onto his balcony and shot the now iconic footage of Rodney King being beaten by the police. The resulting prosecution of the officers involved occurred because, and only because, the incident happened to take place within eyeshot of a citizen with a video camera. At the time, videotaped evidence of police ...
