Also, last call: the subscriber-only webinar on Flock cameras is TOMORROW, at High Noon. Paid subscribers should have received a Zoom link by email last week. If you did not receive it, email us at publicrecordsbriefing@substack.com, and we will send you the link. This is a lunch and learn, so order your lunch here.

Court Case Review

State ex rel. Lawrence v. Dept. of Rehab. & Corr., 2026-Ohio-3471 (Supreme Court of Ohio)

As you could tell from the first link in this edition, he’s back! As you’ll remember from Issue 118, Requester Lawrence, an inmate (video of his cell here), asked DRC for his master file, and the department answered, “we don’t have that here.” The Court didn’t buy the “not at this location” approach and issued a limited writ (lawyer talk for order): produce the inmate master file or certify to the Court that you don’t have it. This kept the question of statutory damages alive while they waited to see what happened. Now we know.

DRC produced the file. And its certification of compliance never disputed that the department (as a whole, not just the building) had the file when Lawrence first asked for it. That combination decided the case. In a short per curiam (more silly Latin lawyer talk – means no named Justice wrote it – “by the court”) decision, the Court held that producing a record in response to a limited writ, without disputing that you possessed it at the time of the request, establishes that you failed to meet your obligation under the Public Records Act.

Then comes the math we keep repeating. Statutory damages run $100 for each business day of noncompliance, starting the day the mandamus action is filed, capped at $1,000. More than ten business days passed, so Lawrence gets the full $1,000. In the final opinion (not per curiam), every justice signed on except Justice Fischer, who dissented.

If the record existed and you had it, producing it under court order proves the violation instead of curing it. The time to find the record is when the request comes in. And note when the damages clock starts: the day the lawsuit is filed, not the day you lose. Every business day you spend litigating instead of looking costs $100 up until the cap is reached.

One footnote worth repeating from last issue: this is the tail end of the inmate damages pipeline. H.B. 265 cut off statutory damages for people in DRC custody as of April 9, 2025. This was the statement from the General Assembly. Lawrence’s requests predate the change. Yours don’t get that protection: every requester outside prison walls can still collect.

Now, the security records and work schedules issue. This part of Lawrence’s decision deserves more attention. The Security Record holding cuts both ways, yet most agencies only know one of the ways.

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This issue, we’re back at the Ohio Supreme Court for a brand-new case from just a few days ago. This one comes from a repeat customer. Thomas Clark has sued the prison system so many times that the justices now cite his earlier losses against him. Burn! The decision covers a lot of ground -- records your office doesn’t keep, body camera footage nobody saved, video an inmate got to watch but not take home, and a fight over what the word “current” means.

From there we head to Fairfax County, Virginia, for body camera footage of a suspect grabbing an officer’s gun during a search in the woods, and we look at how Ohio law would handle the same release. Then we close with a reader question that we get more often than you’d think: can you post a juvenile’s mugshot?

One more reminder: our next subscriber-only webinar is September 15, and it’s all about Flock cameras and the records requests that countless agencies around Ohio have been getting about them.

It’s go time!

Court Case Review:

State ex rel. Clark v. Dept. of Rehab. & Corr., 2026-Ohio-3270

This case is hot off the presses. It’s newer than the sixth Spider-Man reboot.

If the name sounds familiar, it should. Thomas Clark, an inmate at Lebanon Correctional Institution, has taken the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to the Supreme Court over records enough times that we’ve lost count. This time, he sent five electronic messages requesting eight items. He came away with only one partial victory and zero dollars.

ODRC won most of it, but the way it won carries lessons for every public office. We’re going to go through the different types of records he requested and how the court ruled on each request.

Let’s start with the wins for ODRC.

Vendor documents. Clark wanted the terms of use for the prison phone, the tablet vendor, and the vendor’s contract. The prison’s records officer swore that neither document was created, stored, or maintained by ODRC. The contract lives at the Department of Administrative Services (a separate state agency). The Supreme Court said that ends the discussion: a requester has to show the records exist and are kept by the office he asked. The fact that ODRC later went and got a copy of the terms of use from the vendor as a courtesy didn’t create a duty that wasn’t there before.

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In this issue, we’re looking at another 2026 Ohio Supreme Court case. This one comes with a $3,000 price tag and a lesson about how quickly separate requests stack up into separate damage awards. From there we head to Phoenix, Arizona, for body camera footage of a death in police custody, and we look at why the department released what it did and what Ohio law would say about the same video. We close with a reader question about a 9-1-1 dispatch center that records every phone line, all the time, and what happens when a records request scoops up conversations nobody expected to see the light of day.

Also, our next subscriber-only webinar is coming up. We’re going to spend some time talking about the controversial thing that just won’t go away: Flock cameras! We’ll talk about some popular records requests that are going around and how we think you can respond to them. Details at the bottom of the article.

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This issue, we look at a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision that rewards a prosecutor’s office for proving requested records don’t exist, then hands the requester a check anyway because the office sat on its hands for months. From there, we head to Austin, Texas, where police released body camera footage of a heartbreaking shooting the very same day it happened, and we ask what an Ohio release would look like. We close with a reader question about how the video fee statute really works, sparked by an “influencer” Facebook post about the relatively new Attorney General Andy Wilson and his interpretation.

And stick around for a related bonus: the AG’s office has released a model policy on producing video records that belongs in your files.

Court Case Review: State ex rel. Fenstermaker v. McConville, 2026-Ohio-530 (Supreme Court of Ohio)

This one is a split decision in the practical sense: the public office won the big argument and still ended up writing a check. Both halves are worth your time.

Tony Fenstermaker, another inmate (these guys just have tons of time and free law library services on their hands), sent the Knox County Prosecutor a records request by certified mail in October 2024. He wanted certified annual statements of the office’s fees and costs for 2016 through 2021, the office’s records retention schedule, and a cashbook or journal of costs kept under R.C. 2335.25 for 2016 through 2022. Then radio silence. No acknowledgment, no denial, no records. He filed a mandamus action in January 2025, and nine days later the office finally responded, producing the retention schedule and explaining that the other records either don’t exist or aren’t kept by the office.

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We like to have fun with the Public Records Briefing, but this intro calls for sober reflection on the very real dangers of the work of law enforcement.

This issue, we look at an Ohio Supreme Court decision about a prison inmate’s records requests, one that teaches a lesson about “we don’t keep that here” denials while confirming strong protection for security-sensitive records. From there, we head to Wilmington, Delaware, where the state attorney general released body camera footage of a fatal police shooting while the investigation is still open, and we ask how Ohio law would treat the same release.

And because these things sadly all connect, we close with a reader question from an agency that assisted in Rittman and now faces media requests for its body camera footage.

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Mark’s book relates well to public records because – 250 years ago – the founding fathers added their public records grievance to the text of the Declaration of Independence! Read it for yourself: “[King George] has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.” That’s 1776 lingo for “our government won’t let us see our own public records!” Sound familiar?

So let’s get into it.

This issue, we start with a fresh Ohio Supreme Court decision about a school district that refused to hand over the email list for its superintendent’s newsletter — and paid for it. Then we head to Los Angeles, where the LAPD gave its full critical-incident-video treatment to an officer shooting a charging dog. We ask what an Ohio release of the same footage would look like. We close with a question we continue to get: What can you charge the second requester for body-camera video you already redacted the first time around?

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Mundelein, Illinois, for body camera footage from a fatal officer-involved shooting on a mental health call, and we examine how Ohio’s law would have shaped that release. Finally, we close with a timely reader question on Flock cameras.

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In this issue, we’re looking at another new Ohio Supreme Court decision on public records. This case involves discovery in a public records lawsuit. This is essentially what a requester can and cannot demand once they go to court. From there, we head to Des Moines, Iowa, for body camera footage from an officer-involved shooting and ask how Ohio’s law would handle the same release. And we close with a reader question about an old, closed sexual-assault investigative file that names a juvenile witness.

Let’s dig in.

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This week, we talk about a question so basic it’s easy to overlook: what does it actually take to make a public records request? The Ohio Supreme Court just weighed in. From there, we turn to body camera footage out of Minnesota that runs straight into a now-familiar Ohio wrinkle, and we close with a reader question about accident report fees and a third-party platform. Let’s get to it!

Court Case Review: State ex rel. Howard v. Chief Inspector’s Office, 2026-Ohio-1428 (Ohio Supreme Court)

This week’s case is VERY NEW, and it comes right from the Ohio Supreme Court. It tackles a question so basic we probably don’t think about it much: what does someone actually have to do to make a public records request? Is it enough to just ask a government official for something, or are there magic words involved?

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It’s finally starting to feel like summer out there, and we’re hoping the warm weather is here to stay. Grab a friend and find something fun to do!

Before we jump in, a quick reminder: tomorrow, May 12th at noon, we’re hosting a subscriber-only webinar covering everything you need to know about fees and costs in public records.

We’ll break down what you might have to pay if you get things wrong, how to handle cost disputes, and—importantly—the new-ish law that lets agencies charge requesters for the cost of redacting video records. You won’t want to miss it. The dress code is business casual, but all the cool kids will be wearing this.

And off we go…

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And have you marked your calendars for our next webinar at Noon on Tuesday May 12^th! Be sure to order your lunch here.

This week we’re stepping away from the Ohio Supreme Court and pulling a case from the 10th District Court of Appeals in Columbus that shows how public records can affect everyday people. People like this.

Court Case(s) Review: Doe v. Ohio State Univ., 2024-Ohio-5891, (10th Dist.)

This week, we’re giving the Ohio Supreme Court a break and pulling a case from the 10^th District Court of Appeals in Franklin County. It’s a good reminder that public records law doesn’t just affect governments; it can touch anyone who does business with a public entity. Even people who are just buying Ohio State Football tickets. This is a local football team, if you haven’t heard about them.

In this case, a ticket reseller tried to get the personal contact details of every Ohio State season ticket holder. Luckily, he didn’t succeed.

Between March and July 2023, a ticket reseller identified as John Doe fired off six public records requests to Ohio State asking for the names, home mailing addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers of faculty, staff, and donors who’d bought season tickets for Buckeye football and basketball. He also wanted seat locations and other ticket-holder details. Ohio State handed over some spreadsheets with names and work emails for the earliest requests but refused to turn over home addresses or personal emails, arguing they weren’t “records.” It never responded at all to four later requests. Doe sued to force OSU’s hand. The Court of Claims told Ohio State to turn over most of the information except home addresses and anything about students. Both sides appealed to the 10th District.

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Here’s a guided tour of today’s adventures.

This week we’re building an entire issue around use of force reports. We start with a case that shut the door on blanket CLEIR denials of use of force reports.

Boom! That’ll be that door slamming.

From there, we head to Alabama for a body cam review that highlights just how differently our neighbors treat this footage.

And then we close with a reader Q&A on redacting use of force narratives that officers copy and paste from open-case incident reports.

And, we’re scheduling our next members-only Public Records Briefing webinar. Mark your calendars for at Noon, Tuesday, May 12. The topic will be “The Price of ‘No’: When Denials Get Expensive.” We’ll cover all the ways getting public records can cost your agency big bucks.

Ready? Let’s rock.

Court Case(s) Review: State ex rel. Standifer v. Cleveland

Today, our case review and question go hand in hand. You all asked us about use of force reports, and we wanted to give you a background on the current landscape.

In this 2022 opinion, the Ohio Supreme Court made it significantly easier for the public to get detailed police use of force reports under Ohio’s Public Records Act. Journalist Cid Standifer and her newspaper asked the city of Cleveland for the individual reports that officers fill out when they use a certain level of force on the job. These reports spell out why the officer was on scene, what led up to the force, how much resistance the officer met, and exactly what kind of force the officer used. The reports themselves generally aren’t part of the criminal case or investigation, but they’re obviously related.

The city handed over summary spreadsheets but refused to release the full individual reports for dozens of incidents, claiming they were completely protected as “confidential law-enforcement investigatory records,” or CLEIR.

As a brief refresher, law enforcement agencies lean on the CLEIR exception all the time, but it isn’t the catch-all some assume it to be. To qualify, a record must pass a two-part test. First, it must actually “pertain to a law enforcement matter” of a criminal, civil, or administrative nature -- not a routine personnel or employment file. Second, releasing the record must create a “high probability” of revealing one of the four categories of CLEIR protected information: the identity of an uncharged suspect, a confidential source or witness, specific investigatory techniques or investigatory work product, or information that would endanger someone’s safety. If the agency can’t satisfy both prongs, the record goes out the door.

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Not everyone deals with open meetings issues regularly, but for those who work for a township, city council, or county commissioners’ office, these questions can come up fast. You’ve probably heard that government meetings have to be “open,” but what does that actually mean under Ohio law? Here’s some basic Q&A on Ohio’s Open Meetings Act, found in R.C. 121.22.

Open Meetings Q&A

1. What exactly counts as a “meeting” under Ohio law?

We know meetings have to be open, but what actually counts as a “meeting”? Under R.C. 121.22, a meeting is any prearranged gathering of a majority of the members of a public body for the purpose of discussing or conducting public business. So, if you have a three-member board, two members getting together to talk shop could trigger the Open Meetings Act. What qualifies as a “public body”? What counts as “public business”? Those definitions raise plenty of questions on their own—but we have to keep you coming back for more. We’ll dig into those terms in upcoming editions!

2. What notice must the public receive before a meeting can happen?

The notice required by law depends on the type of meeting. For regular meetings, the public body must establish a reasonable method for anyone to determine the time and place of those meetings. For special meetings (meaning any meeting that falls outside the regular schedule) the public body must give at least 24 hours’ advance notice to any news media outlet that has requested notification, including the time, place, and purpose of the meeting. In the case of an emergency requiring immediate official action, the members calling the meeting must immediately notify those same news media outlets of the time, place, and purpose of the emergency session.

If you have a public meeting without providing notice, any decisions made at that meeting could be invalidated!

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This week we have a court case where a convicted criminal’s blitz of 46 public records requests in two hours led to a $1,000 damages award, plus a bodycam review from Las Vegas. Sounds like a great script for a movie!

Court Case(s) Review: State ex rel. Luikart v. Washington Court House, 2026-Ohio-111.

Get a drink of water because this case is crazy! So far this year, the Ohio Supreme Court has been super busy churning out public records cases involving prisoners and criminal defendants. This week’s decision features a paltry 45 public records requests from a defendant with mucho time on his hands.

Aaron Luikart, who was facing criminal charges in the city’s municipal court, sent 46 emails over a two-hour span on a Sunday evening in November 2024 (closed circuit video of him sending his requests here, probably). You read that right, 46 emails. Each email requested one or two specific documents from more than 40 different cases in that same court—but none from his own ongoing criminal case. The city attorney prosecuting Luikart, misinterpreted these as requests for discovery materials tied to Luikart’s case and ignored them entirely. Nine days later, Luikart filed a lawsuit asking the court to force the city to hand over the records. And the kicker, he asked for $45,000 in statutory damages for the delay.

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States not named Ohio

Glad you work in Ohio? You’ll be even more glad when we tell you about a proposed Tennessee law about public records requests for body cameras. Unlike Ohio, Tennessee apparently lacks a standard public records policy surrounding body camera footage and its availability. A new proposed law would set standards for the state and all of its police.

What’s more interesting is that in Tennessee, you must be a resident of the state to make public records requests! Officials or administrators there can require proof of address, in order to release documents. According to the article, people from other states have recruited someone who is a Tennessee resident to request records on their behalf. At least one author of the proposed law wants to change that to allow out-of-state residents to request records.

Reading the article gives you a better appreciation for Ohio law and how it uniformly applies to our 900+ police departments around the state. While you might not like parts of it, hopefully we can all agree that having hundreds of police departments make up their own standards for redaction and public records requests would be more annoying than this.

Finally, just a courtesy reminder since we’re talking about it. If you haven’t adopted your records policy to allow your agency to charge for body camera records requests, you should do that ASAP!

Court Case(s) Review: State ex rel. Fenstermaker v. Grogan, 2026-Ohio-482.

We have another new case where an inmate wants public records (apparently they have lots of time on their hands). Or perhaps they’re just trying to make some quick money while other employment opportunities are diminishing.

In this case, inmate Tony Fenstermaker requested public records from the Marion County Prosecutor’s office. Fenstermaker sent a certified mail request in March 2024 for three items: (1) certified financial statements from 2016 to 2021, (2) the office’s records retention schedule, and (3) a cashbook tracking money received from 2016 to 2022. The public office responded about two weeks later, providing the retention schedule and introductory letters for the statements, but it omitted the attachments to those statements. This will be important later when we come back for statutory damages, stay tuned.

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Court Case(s) Review: State ex rel. Macksyn v. Spencer, 2026-Ohio-44.

This week we have another new case for you from the Ohio Supreme Court. Like last week, this serves as a reminder that timing can be a very expensive mistake.

In this case, an inmate named Delanor Macksyn sued several Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) employees for failing to promptly provide the public records he’d requested. Macksyn sent several requests in March and April 2024 asking for emails and other documents related to himself—specifically, discussions about prison policies or his treatment. You read that right: he was requesting internal discussions about himself. Goofy!

The DRC staff initially provided some records but delayed or ignored others, leading Macksyn to file a mandamus lawsuit in June 2024. When the court first considered the case in 2025, it mostly denied his request for a writ but ordered DRC to either produce specific emails from three of his requests or officially confirm they didn’t exist. Following that order, the DRC provided emails for two of the requests but said the third didn’t exist. There’s the first problem: some emails the inmate requested in 2024 weren’t provided for more than a year!

The only issue here was whether Macksyn could recover the $1,000 in statutory damages allowed for delayed responses to public records requests. If you read last week’s edition, you know this can get very expensive. The breakdown is $100 for each business day of delay, starting from the day the lawsuit is filed, capped at $1,000 per request. Since each request is considered individually, the total can stack up fast.

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Court Case(s) Review: State ex rel. Henderson v. Washington Court House, 2026-Ohio-110.

This will warm you up, because we’ve got a case hot off the press. The Ohio Supreme Court decided this one just last month, and it serves as a critical reminder to respond to public records requests out as soon as you can.

In this instance, the city only paid a $1,000 fine. But had the Chief Justice had her way, the city would’ve been facing a $60,000 penalty for failing to respond. That’s a lot of money! It’s a stark reminder to ensure you respond to those (sometime annoying) requesters in a reasonable amount of time.

The case involved Cody Henderson, who was facing criminal charges in the Washington Court House Municipal Court. One day, Henderson sent 77 emails to the city attorney in just under two hours. If only it were as easy to respond to public records requests as it is to send them!

In total, these emails amounted to 60 separate requests for specific documents from 27 municipal court cases. Notably, none of the requests involved Henderson’s own pending criminal case. Maybe Henderson was looking to prepare his own defense.

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Public Records in the News

We know you love Ohio public records, but let’s look elsewhere to gain a better appreciation of just how good (or bad) we have it here!

This issue, we’re going to look west to Illinois. Their public records law (which they call FOIA just like the federal government) underwent some changes in 2026. One of the most interesting changes was an amendment to their definition of public records. Illinois changed their definition to exclude “junk mail” from being a public record. This means that before January 1, 2026, Illinois municipalities apparently had the duty to store, maintain, and provide public access to everything from those “you’ve won a free cruise” junk faxes to good old fashioned junk they received in the mail! In Ohio, our definition is written in a way that automatically excludes junk mail and that kind of stuff from being a public record. Why? Because that junk fax doesn’t document the work of the office!

The other change in Illinois that might make its way to Ohio was a change to the definition of a person. Illinois (and other states) have been seeing more records requests that are generated by online forms, bots, computer programs, or possibly even AI. To address this, Illinois law now allows an agency to ask the person to confirm they are a real person if they have a reasonable belief the request wasn’t submitted by a human. How does the person do that? Either by phone call or an email reply. The government isn’t allowed to ask for personal information though (e.g., names, government ID #s, etc.). It’s probably possible that an AI agent or bot could fake the confirmation, but this will certainly cut down on some automated requests.

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Are you feeling hopeful about 2026? We took a video of our New Year’s Day. We hope to have it expunged soon. Do you have a bunch of New Year’s resolutions?! Well, we hope becoming a public records law expert is one of them. Because this is how we’re feeling about another year of the Public Records Briefing.

Practical Redaction Tips from Real Life

Recently, people all around the country have been discussing the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. In one of its most recent releases, the U.S. Department of Justice (Mark used to work there but it was long ago, and he’s never been to Epstein Island, so don’t blame him) redacted some text on the pages it released. However, savvy social media uses discovered that the redaction weren’t done properly. In fact, users could copy the entire PDF page and then paste all of the text (including the supposedly redacted text) into a new document!

There’s a lesson here for public records administrators – like you!

With Adobe PDFs, you need to take great care when redacting a document. The easiest and most secure way to do this is to utilize the redaction feature within Adobe Acrobat. When you redact text through Acrobat, the text and all of the underlying information is destroyed in a secure way that prevents anyone from learning what was redacted. The downside to this is it requires an Adobe Acrobat subscription that can be pretty expensive if you’re buying it for many users.

It is possible to redact securely without using the paid version of Adobe Acrobat. However, it’s riskier and requires someone to know what they’re doing. The key mistake in many failed redactions — like those seen in some Epstein-related documents — is simply covering text with a black box or shape. This only hides the information visually; the underlying text remains in the PDF’s structure and can often be revealed by copying and pasting, searching, or using basic tools.

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We’re wrapping up 2025 with our final edition of the year. Since it’s a holiday week, we’re going to give you a special section: your 2026 public records New Year’s Resolutions!

We’ll see you in 2026 with more public records fun. We’re already planning some great topics and remain open for any suggestions you may have!

Body Cam Review: When Transparency Backfires

In this week’s review, we’re looking at a mess down in Alabama that deals with the intersection of public records and law enforcement crisis communications. It’s less about redaction but still a very interesting story.

The Birmingham Police Department was involved in a shooting that killed a 26-year-old named Jamal Williams. As is often the case, the community demanded immediate answers and release of the footage. In an effort to be transparent and calm the public, the Birmingham Police released the footage of the shooting very quickly. The police chief held a press conference where his agency’s footage (as well as footage from another public agency) were released. In terms of crisis communications, this is what we almost always recommend. Body camera footage is far more likely to clear police than it is to show the police doing something wrong.

But there was a catch. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA)—basically their version of BCI—was supposed to be doing the independent investigation into the shooting. When Birmingham released the video, ALEA publicly announced they were ending their investigation and then they walked away from case.

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