CLEIR, Burger King, and a Quiz!
Public Records Briefing - Edition #87
Good morning, merry sunshine!
We hope this edition finds you well bright and early this morning. We can feel the excitement for more public records knowledge radiating across the screen to us today.
And we have a super fun quiz for you today! We know you love them.
But first we are still trailblazing through all the exceptions in the Public Records Act, one by one, letter by letter. Who knows, if the General Assembly keeps adding exceptions (and since we only publish every other week) we may never get to the end!
Exceptions A thru ZZ to 149.43
If you're a witness to a crime — or worse, a victim — you'd probably want the law to protect your identity in the event that the police report about the crime was released and maybe even put on the internet. And that's completely understandable: witnesses often want to be helpful but prefer to remain anonymous, and victims need time to heal after a crime has been committed against them.
The lawmakers who wrote the Public Records Act agree wholeheartedly on both of these points. Under R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(mm), telephone numbers of victims and witnesses to a crime that’s listed on a law enforcement record or report are protected from public records release.
This exception predates the Marsy’s Law exception in R.C. 2930.07. That exception will protect most victim information, but this exception will protect phone numbers (but not names) even if Marsy’s Law doesn’t.
Best Practices
