Arizona Supreme Court rules electronic data is public

The Arizona Supreme Court today ruled that metadata – information about the history, tracking and management of an electronic document – is subject to the state’s public records law.

Several national media organizations supported Phoenix Police Department officer David Lake’s challenge that the city improperly denied his 2006 public records request for the metadata about documents he had previously requested and received. The city refused Lake’s request, arguing the metadata did not fall within the state’s definition of public records, which a court established in 1952, long before the advent of electronic documents.

In a unanimous opinion released today, the state’s high court held, “If a public entity maintains a public record in an electronic format, then the electronic version, including any embedded metadata, is subject to disclosure.”

David J. Bodney, a lawyer who helped write a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of The Associated Press, Gannett Company, The E.W. Scripps, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the state Supreme Court decision is a victory for public access.

Arizona sheriff’s liability for attorney’s fees upheld

Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio‘s office will indeed have to pay more than $25,000 to cover a newspaper’s attorney’s fees in a public records case.

The Arizona Supreme Court on Monday said it would not take up an appellate court ruling in Arpaio v. Citizen Publishing, the Phoenix New Times reports. The case started in 2007 when the Tucson Citizen sought records from the Pima County attorney’s office related to a civil forfeiture case that Arpaio’s office had investigated. Arpaio did not want the records disclosed, claiming that their release would violate attorney-client privilege between his office and the Pima County attorney’s office.

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall asked a trial court for a declaratory judgment on whether she could properly release the records. That court said the records were public and ordered Arpaio to pay the legal fees of the now-defunct newspaper. The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the decision in December.

See also:

Arizona sheriff’s department target of probe

Thousands march against Arpaio in Phoenix

Sheriff Arpaio ordered to pay more attorney fees in Arizona case

Finally, the Law Goes After Joe Arpaio — the Most Abusive Sheriff In America

Arpaio’s Jail Staff Cost Ambrett Spencer Her Baby, and She’s Not the Only One

Supreme Court Cuts Back Officers’ Searches of Vehicles

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday significantly cut back the ability of the police to search the cars of people they arrest.

Police officers have for a generation understood themselves to be free to search vehicles based on nothing more than the fact that they had just arrested an occupant. That principle, Justice John Paul Stevens acknowledged in his majority opinion, “has been widely taught in police academies” and “law enforcement officers have relied on the rule in conducting vehicle searches during the past 28 years.”

The majority replaced that bright-line rule with a more nuanced one, and law enforcement officials greeted it with dismay. “It’s just terrible,” William J. Johnson, the executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, said of the decision. “It’s certainly going to result in less drug and weapons cases being made.”