Group items tagged

While it is thus true that this office generally defers to a law enforcement agency's classification of an investigation as active, inactive, or closed, fully recognizing that we have no statutory authority to order the agency to close an investigation for open records purposes , we have had occasion to question an agency's reliance on KRS 61.878(1)(h) and KRS 17.150(2), and its classification of an investigation as open, where several years have elapsed and the agency fails to provide an adequate explanation or otherwise meet its statutory burden of proof. See, e.g., OAG 86-80 (eight years); OAG 90-143 (one and one-half years); 02-ORD-20 (ten years). In so doing, we were guided by the language found in KRS 17.150(3), echoed in KRS 61.878(1)(h), and the statement of legislative policy that appears at KRS 61.871, declaring that "free and open examination of public records is in the public interest" and that the referenced exceptions to public inspection must be "strictly construed" to promote the public's right to know. Underlying these decisions was the recognition that "[s]ecret police activity without some overriding justification is repugnant to the American system of government," OAG 80-54, p. 3, and that when an investigation has been inactive for an inordinate period of time, the public's interest in seeing an offender brought to justice may have to yield to the public's right to review the conduct of the police in discharging their statutory duties

While it is thus true that this office generally defers to a law enforcement agency's classification of an investigation as active, inactive, or closed, fully recognizing that we have no statutory authority to order the agency to close an investigation for open records purposes , we have had occasion to question an agency's reliance on KRS 61.878(1)(h) and KRS 17.150(2), and its classification of an investigation as open, where several years have elapsed and the agency fails to provide an adequate explanation or otherwise meet its statutory burden of proof. See, e.g., OAG 86-80 (eight years); OAG 90-143 (one and one-half years); 02-ORD-20 (ten years). In so doing, we were guided by the language found in KRS 17.150(3), echoed in KRS 61.878(1)(h), and the statement of legislative policy that appears at KRS 61.871, declaring that "free and open examination of public records is in the public interest" and that the referenced exceptions to public inspection must be "strictly construed" to promote the public's right to know. Underlying these decisions was the recognition that "[s]ecret police activity without some overriding justification is repugnant to the American system of government," OAG 80-54, p. 3, and that when an investigation has been inactive for an inordinate period of time, the public's interest in seeing an offender brought to justice may have to yield to the public's right to review the conduct of the police in discharging their statutory duties