CJ Griffin Wins New Jersey Supreme Court Case Against Jersey City on Behalf of New Jersey Monitor
CJ Griffin, partner and director of the Justice Gary S. Stein Public Interest Center at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C., recently secured a victory from the New Jersey Supreme Court on behalf of the New Jersey Monitor in a ruling deciding that the expungement of a Jersey City police lieutenant’s 2019 arrest does not prevent the city from releasing an internal affairs report about the matter.
New Jersey’s highest court, in a unanimous decision, held that the public has the right to see police internal affairs reports and learn about an officer’s misconduct, even if the officers involved had their corresponding criminal records expunged. The justices held that transparency outweighs privacy in these cases, and that expungement laws do not prevent access to such internal affairs documents.
The case, captioned States Newsroom Inc. v. City of Jersey City, stems from a 2019 incident in which a Jersey City police lieutenant, who had been drinking heavily at a party, fired a shotgun toward his girlfriend and her son during an argument, according to the ruling. The lieutenant was arrested and criminally charged, but was admitted into a pre-trial intervention program. He was separately disciplined by the internal affairs unit and received a ninety-day suspension. After Griffin sued for the internal affairs report on New Jersey Monitor’s behalf, the lieutenant obtained an expungement of his criminal records. Jersey City then argued the expungement order barred them from disclosing the internal affairs report, but the Supreme Court disagreed.
CJ Griffin said the Court’s ruling expands access to information about police misconduct by barring Jersey City from shielding the public from knowing more about the officer in question’s “wildly dangerous actions that could have easily killed someone.”
But Griffin noted that the ruling also requires a judge to redact from the report any references to the lieutenant’s arrest and criminal case, which is not as much transparency as the public deserves
“We know what occurred in this case because of prior public disclosures, but what if we didn’t? The redactions would keep the public from monitoring how prosecutors give officers special treatment. Or it could even lead the public to assume that this officer engaged in this lawless behavior, yet was not arrested like any other civilian would be,” Griffin told the New Jersey Monitor.
“There was no doubt this IA report had to be disclosed under the law, but we had to sue for it and then the officer was able to get an expungement during the proceedings. Other towns will no doubt try the same thing,” she said.
“Today’s decision is another important ruling from our Supreme Court that ensures the public has access to information about police misconduct. This case ensures that the transparency we were promised by the court’s decision in Rivera v. Union County Prosecutor’s Office is not evaded and that we will still learn about an officer’s behavior, even if his corresponding criminal records are expunged,” Griffin told NJ.com.
A copy of the Court’s opinion is available here.
To read articles about the case in the New Jersey monitor, click here and here.
To read about the case on NJ.com, click here.
Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C. and CJ Griffin are proud of the results achieved for clients, some of which are noted here. Of course, each legal matter is unique on many levels, and past successes are not a guarantee of results in any other pending or future matters.