Welcome back. And Boo!
In this issue, the Ohio Supreme Court takes on a question your office has probably muttered about at the front counter: what happens when an inmate who can’t get his own records sends a relative to ask for them instead? The Court’s answer came with a paper trail so obvious the opinion makes a joke about déjà vu. From there we head to Senatobia, Mississippi, for the hardest body camera story we’ve covered this year: the shooting death of a 1-year-old, four months of withheld footage, and a leak that beat the state to its own release. We close with a Q&A from a records sergeant about LEADS and OHLEG information, and whether data that starts life in a restricted database stays restricted after it lands on your incident report.
Let’s get going.
Court Case Review
State ex rel. Hambel v. Franklin Cty. Prosecutor’s Office, 2026-Ohio-4074 (Supreme Court of Ohio)
We start with the rule (please remember this one) that drives this whole case. Under R.C. 149.43(B)(8), a public office may refuse to give an incarcerated person records concerning a criminal investigation or prosecution unless his sentencing judge finds the records are necessary to support what appears to be a justiciable claim. It’s one of the few places in Ohio public records law where who the requester is actually matters.
James Conway III is serving time in a Franklin County case. In April 2021, he asked the Columbus police and the Franklin County prosecutor for trial exhibits and a ballistics report from his case. He asked for the weapon’s make, model, and serial number, along with the location of the parking lot where it was recovered. Both offices told him the same thing: get the sentencing judge’s approval first. He never did.
A month later, his uncle sent his own requests to the same offices, asking for the same exhibits and the same ballistics report, down to the same Colt .45 serial number and the same parking lot, in nearly the same words, plus a few new items. The Court dryly observed that “the reader can be forgiven for thinking he or she experienced déjà vu.”
