The Maryland state police department is fighting a freedom of information request that it must release documents concerning racial profiling.
The Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, heard oral arguments Friday in a case that will determine whether internal investigation files related to racial profiling complaints lodged against state police officers are public records subject to disclosure under the Maryland Public Information Act.
In the case of Maryland Department of State Police v. Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches, the police department is appealing a lower court ruling that it must release the documents, which the NAACP has requested under the Public Information Act.
Seth Rosenthal, attorney for the NAACP, argued the group is not interested in identifying individual officers, but that the case “is and always has been about the conduct of the state police as an agency.” He maintained that reports provided to the NAACP under the consent decree do not show whether the state police took any specific action to investigate complaints of racial profiling.
“These records reflect upon the conduct of the state police as an agency. How can those be personnel records?” Rosenthal said.
Rosenthal also argued that even if the court were to assume that the complaints were “personnel records” under the Public Information Act, it still required that they be released to the NAACP in redacted form. He also argued that state police officers “do not carry with them a reasonable expectation to privacy” when it comes to incidents occurring during traffic stops.
Link: http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11623