1-28-2010 Connecticut:
HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut could join at least a dozen other states by restricting prison inmates from using FOI laws to get personal information to harass or threaten their guards — and, in some cases, prosecutors or other inmates.
Inmates here and around the country have swamped systems with information requests — for guards' personnel and arrest records, files affecting the inmates' own legal cases, and details as mundane as meal ingredients. Though no Connecticut prison officers have been harmed or harassed, because no personnel records have been released, prison officials say they are fighting because they view such requests as a threat to the safety and security of staff and others at the prisons.
From his cell in a Suffield prison, where he's serving out an 86-year sentence for sexual assault, Richard Stevenson is trying to learn more about his guards. He's battled Connecticut's Department of Correction for the past year, seeking off-duty arrest records of more than 100 guards.
Stevenson, 45, contends he wants the information for a court appeal. A Freedom of Information Commission officer initially OK'd his request — but prison officials want it blocked. They claim it will endanger the officers by giving an inmate juicy information he could use against a guard to his advantage.
"When an inmate is requesting information, it's not for anybody's good, especially when they're lifers, for vicious assaults or whatever," said Jon Pepe, president of AFSCME Local 391, one of several union locals representing prison officers in Connecticut. "These are not good people."
Washington, Arkansas, Michigan, Virginia, New Jersey, Texas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, Alabama, Georgia and Arizona have various laws on the books, some dating to the mid-1990s, that limit or block inmate access to state open-record laws, according to prison union officials.
Apparently none of the laws was prompted by violence against guards; most — like Georgia's, Michigan's and Texas' — refer to potential harassment and the cost and burden of compliance.
In Washington, a law enacted last year after threats against several prosecutors by an inmate, Allan Parmelee, who is serving 17 years for firebombing his lawyers' cars. Parmelee had made hundreds of requests for photos, surveillance video or personnel files on judges, prosecutors, prison guards and others he's encountered in his legal case.
The personnel records requested by prisoners in Connecticut have not reached the inmates because of the prison department's legal challenges. However, prison officials point to a recent disturbance after one inmate learned from a local police report he requested under the open-records law that another inmate had been an informant.
Connecticut's full FOI commission recently ruled to release records Stevenson wants, but with the guards' names redacted. The state DOC has not yet decided whether to comply.
This case and several others, which pit the prisons department against the FOI commission, are fueling a renewed push to change state law and curb rising inmate FOI requests for personnel records.
Prison officials say they worry that inmates could threaten and compromise an officer by telling other inmates about a potentially embarrassing arrest — and that sensitive personal information about staff, such as home addresses and names of family members, could get into the wrong hands.
Although there are exemptions in Connecticut's FOI Act to withhold public employees' personnel and health records, they're not airtight. It must be proven that the information would highly offend a reasonable person, and that there's no public interest in it.
Colleen Murphy, executive director of the state's FOI commission, said the panel opposes an across-the-board ban on releasing such records to inmates. There are situations, she said, where the information could benefit the inmate and possibly the state as a whole.
Prisoners "are uniquely situated to see if there is any wrongdoing going on in the other side of the fence," Murphy said.
Prison officials claim inmate FOIs are jamming the system, but the FOI commission — which aims to treat inmates as other citizens — disagrees. It says it has seen an increase in its workload, of which inmates' requests are only about 20% and manageable. A significant portion of the requests are for information about inmates' guards, officials say.
Paul Wright, editor of the Seattle-based Prison Legal News, said Connecticut's proposed limits were part of "a national clampdown" to isolate prisoners from the outside world.
He questioned whether guard protection was the real issue, in that an inmate, or someone acting for him, can already glean information like arrest records from the Internet and newspapers. Wright suggested that prison officials were really trying to block information that would disclose poor prison conditions.
"This isn't occurring in a vacuum. It's kind of a full-court press," he said. "They don't want to give up the information. They know if they give up the information, it basically gives insight into how poorly run their institutions are."
Wright knows firsthand the information that an inmate can uncover using open-records laws. While serving 17 years of a 25-year term in Washington State for killing a cocaine dealer he was trying to rob, Wright requested documents on all of the doctors working for the state's prison system. He learned that some didn't have medical licenses and many had been disciplined for medical neglect.
"For the most part, the pattern here wasn't, 'This is Marcus Welby and we have some issues,' " said Wright, referring to a 1970s TV doctor show starring Robert Young. "These are crappy doctors."
In Florida, where FOI laws are among the nation's strongest, inmates are allowed equal access to public records under the state's constitution. "To limit any access to any party or designated group — I don't think it would fly here in Florida," said JoAnn Carrin, director of the Office of Open Government.
Kansas Corrections spokesman Bill Miskell said his agency had considered banning inmates' access to information about staff — but questions whether it's workable. "If the inmate can't get it," he said, "the inmate will have somebody on the outside write in and say, 'Please send me the information about this staff member or that staff member.' " ..Source.. First Amendment Center
January 28, 2010
Conn. tries to stop inmates seeking dirt on guards
June 13, 2008
WA- Felons don't have rights to public records, Attorney General says
6-13-2008 Washington:
OLYMPIA — Felons who have not had their civil rights restored should not have the same rights to public records that others have, state Attorney General Rob McKenna says.
McKenna makes the assertion in a friend-of-the-court brief that has been filed with the state Court of Appeals in a case concerning an imprisoned arsonist who's been trying to dig up information on the judges, lawyers and corrections officers who helped put him behind bars.
In the filing obtained by The Associated Press, McKenna — an active proponent of public-records access — says that inmates' access under the state Public Records Act (PRA) is "fundamentally inconsistent with the objectives, needs and realities of the prison system and the legal status of inmates."
McKenna said Monday that the brief doesn't conflict with his advocacy on public records.
"I'm an ardent defender of the First Amendment, but I don't think you can yell fire in a crowded movie theater," he said. "The massive abuse of the Public Records Act by inmates is a threat to the use of the sunshine laws by legitimate requesters."
In 2007, 73 percent of public-records requests to the state Department of Corrections came from offenders, a total of 4,917 requests, according to McKenna's office. Corrections staff spent more than 12,000 hours responding to the requests at a cost of more than $250,000.
McKenna's office noted that one inmate alone made 788 requests during a five-month period; other inmates have sought everything from user names and logins for corrections employees, to all Washington Corrections Center audio and video recordings, past and present. One request asked for all records that show how many plastic bags are purchased by the department.
"It's astounding, absolutely astounding, how many abusive requests there have been and how rapidly the abuse of the records act has grown among inmates," McKenna said.
The filing, requested by the Court of Appeals, was submitted Friday evening.
The case involves Allan Parmelee, who in 2004 was convicted at his second trial of first-degree arson in the firebombing of a vehicle belonging to his ex-wife's divorce lawyer and another belonging to a lawyer who represented his roommate's ex-girlfriend. His first trial ended in a mistrial because he was found to have personal information about the jurors.
While in prison, Parmelee has made hundreds of requests, seeking records that include addresses, photos, pay, schedules, professional histories and birth dates of Washington State Patrol troopers and Corrections Department staff. Several jurisdictions have disputed Parmelee's rights to the records.
In March, a King County Superior Court judge ruled she had no authority to bar Parmelee from making the requests. County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg had sought not only to let his office ignore the pending requests but also to bar Parmelee from filing more unless he first obtained court permission.
McKenna submitted his friend-of-the-court brief for a similar case involving several other counties and records requested by Parmelee. The Court of Appeals has consolidated three cases, one from Thurston County and two from Clallam County.
McKenna said his reading of the law is clear.
"The state doesn't allow inmates to physically harass or intimidate corrections officials or other officials; it doesn't make sense that the law would allow them to use the public records as a means of coercion," he said.
In the brief, McKenna said if inmates have access to public records under the act, it "allows inmates, including inmates with a history of violence, like Mr. Parmelee, to engage in harassment and intimidation of staff, to disrupt prison order by diverting its resources, and to waste the public's money on an extraordinary scale."
Voters enacted the law with the overwhelming passage of Initiative 276 in 1972. The measure called for disclosure of campaign finances, lobbyist activity, financial affairs of elective officers and candidates, and access to public records.
McKenna wrote that "it is difficult to conceive that the people who enacted Initiative 276 decided to remove its regulatory authority over inmate access to public records, and grant expanded rights for incarcerated felons."
Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, said the coalition was analyzing the brief.
But he said if the appeals court decides to adopt McKenna's line of reasoning, "this would be a significant change that we don't think would be in the best public interest."
If the arguments in McKenna's brief are accepted, Nixon said not only imprisoned felons would lose their access to public records but all convicted felons who are out of prison but haven't had their civil rights restored.
"Does this mean that anyone who makes a public-records request is subject to a criminal-background check?" he asked.
The brief argues that just as incarcerated felons lose the right to vote, hold public office and serve on a jury, until their civil rights are restored "they forfeit the legal authority that citizens exercise over their government to influence its decision-making processes."
But Nixon said prisoners would still likely be able to get family members or advocacy groups to make the requests for them.
He agreed there are cases of abuse of public records by inmates, and that the coalition had been hoping to meet with the Department of Corrections to look for solutions that would not affect broader access to records.
"I think that the community at large needs to figure out a way to deal with the abuses of the Public Records Act so that the Legislature or courts, in a reactive way, don't do something that results in the inability of all the rest of us to have access to public records," Nixon said.
McKenna spokeswoman Janelle Guthrie said that the attorney general's office currently has only one public-records request pending from an incarcerated felon — Parmelee — and that it will suspend the request until there is a decision from the appeals court.
John Scott Blonien, an assistant secretary at the Corrections Department, said his agency will wait for a judicial decision before making any change in how it handles public-records requests from incarcerated felons. ..News Source.. by RACHEL LA CORTE
