Court backs faster public record response

Government can’t make people wait for weeks or months for public records, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

In a unanimous decision, the judges said Arizona’s public records law, unlike some other states, requires that the custodian of the items “shall promptly furnish such copies, photographs or printouts.” And it says any request not promptly honored is deemed to have been denied.

Judge Murray Snow, writing for the court, acknowledged the law does not define “promptly.”

But he said there are some limits. And there is no way that delays of more than 100 days, as happened in a case involving the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, can be considered reasonable.

Calls to the attorney for the sheriff’s Office, named in a lawsuit, were not immediately returned.

The judges acknowledged that delays have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. But they also concluded that public agencies can’t avoid their legal responsibilities for prompt responses simply because an employee neglected to pursue the request.

“If mere inattention by an employee of a public body could meet that body’s burden of establishing that it promptly provided documents ... it would turn on its head the core purpose of the public records law,” Snow wrote.

That purpose, he said, is to ensure that individuals have access to official government records to be able to “monitor the performance of government officials and their employees.”

The case involves a series of requests made by New Times, a Phoenix weekly newspaper, for sheriff’s office records. These ranged from personnel records to reports about the investigation of Dan Saban — at the time running against incumbent Sheriff Joe Arpaio — on allegations of sexual misconduct.

In the Saban case, the sheriff’s office said the investigation was transferred to another agency. But 143 days later, after the lawsuit was filed and the election over, the office concluded it did, in fact, have some records.

That, said Snow, was not “prompt” as required by law.

In another incident, a sheriff’s employee said she didn’t respond for 141 days because she didn’t want to communicate with the New Times reporter.

Snow also said it was no excuse to delay providing records to someone simply because those same documents might be obtained from another source.

Tuesday’s ruling that the response to the records requests were not prompt does not end the court battle. The appellate judges sent the case back to a trial judge to determine if the delays were in bad faith or were arbitrary and capricious, the standards to determine if the county has to pay the legal fees for the newspaper.

Tell us your story

The Tribune is looking for your stories, struggles and successes in requesting public records from local and state government agencies. Whether you’re an everyday citizen, a business person, lawyer or politician, we want to hear your tales of trying to get information from the people whose salaries are paid by your tax dollars.
E-mail us at myrecords@evtrib.com or call (480) 898-5668.
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