Title: State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Craig

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 
ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Craig, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-1999.] 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2012-OHIO-1999 
THE STATE EX REL. CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, APPELLANT, v. CRAIG, CHIEF, 
APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets,  
it may be cited as State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Craig,  
Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-1999.] 
Public records—R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(v)—Constitutional right of privacy—Personal 
information identifying police officers who are under threat of criminal 
retaliation. 
(No. 2011-1798—Submitted April 4, 2012—Decided May 10, 2012.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Hamilton County, No. C-100820,  
2011-Ohio-4498. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} This is an appeal from a judgment denying the claim of appellant, the 
Cincinnati Enquirer, for a writ of mandamus to compel appellee, James E. Craig,1 the 
                                          
 
1  This case was originally instituted against former Cincinnati police chief Thomas Streicher, who has 
since retired.  Craig, who is Streicher’s successor, is substituted as the appellee in this appeal.  See 
State ex rel. Everhart v. McIntosh, 115 Ohio St.3d 195, 2007-Ohio-4798, 874 N.E.2d 516, ¶ 6; Civ.R. 
25(D)(1); www.cincinnati-oh.gov/police/pages/-5040-/.  
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chief of police of the city of Cincinnati, to provide access to certain records pursuant 
to R.C. 149.43, the Public Records Act.  Because the requested records are exempt 
from disclosure, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
Facts 
{¶ 2} The Iron Horsemen is a nationwide outlaw motorcycle gang that has 
been based in Cincinnati for about 40 years.  They deal in drugs, weapons, and 
prostitution.  In the 1980s, threats and tension between the Iron Horsemen and the 
Cincinnati police were prevalent.  One of the members of the Iron Horsemen had 
created a 12-gauge shotgun within his motorcycle handlebar to threaten police 
officers.  Other members had threatened an officer and his family with weapons at a 
remote site where he was building a home.  Ultimately, the Iron Horsemen became 
less confrontational, but the Cincinnati police continued to monitor the gang’s 
activities. 
{¶ 3} Recently, a rival outlaw motorcycle gang, the Detroit Highwaymen, 
has tried to establish an operations base in Cincinnati, resulting in conflict between 
the two gangs.  There have been “takeovers” of bars in which members of one of the 
gangs would enter, close the bar, detain everybody, and determine whether anyone 
was a rival gang member. They would then threaten and beat rival gang members 
who were there. 
{¶ 4} On September 18, 2010, an officer on his way to work observed 
motorcycles outside of JD’s Honky Tonk bar.  He saw several Iron Horsemen 
wearing their colors and thought that a takeover of the bar was in progress.  
Approximately 14 police officers, including one or two uniformed officers, 
responded to his call, and a gunfight erupted. Two police officers were wounded, and 
one of the Iron Horsemen—the group’s national enforcer—was killed.  One of the 
Iron Horsemen pleaded guilty to a weapons charge, but no other charges were filed. 
{¶ 5} Shortly afterward, Thomas Streicher, then Cincinnati police chief,  
received information that there was a good possibility that Iron Horsemen members 
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would target police—particularly those officers involved in the bar fight—and that 
the threat of retaliation for the death of the national enforcer could last indefinitely. 
According to Streicher, based on his “historic knowledge,” it is not unusual for an 
outlaw motorcycle gang to seek revenge against the police when one of its members 
is shot and killed by the police.  Both officers who had been wounded had 
themselves returned fire, and both were concerned that if the Iron Horsemen 
discovered their identities, the gang would retaliate by attacking them or members of 
their families. One of the two officers wounded had been shot in the right leg by the 
enforcer, and the bullet had traveled through his leg before becoming lodged in his 
hip, where it remains, still causing pain.  The other officer had been shot a few 
inches to the left of his lower spine and still experiences pain at the site of the scar. 
{¶ 6} In September and October 2010, reporters for the Cincinnati Enquirer 
requested that the police department provide the newspaper with certain records 
related to the September 18, 2010 shootout at JD’s Honky Tonk bar, including the 
names of the two police officers shot, their personnel files, and an unredacted copy 
of the incident report of the shootout.  Streicher denied the requests insofar as the 
Enquirer sought names and identifying information regarding the officers involved in 
the shootout: 
 
We are not releasing the names of any of the officers involved 
in this incident due to the sensitive nature of their assignments and the 
sensitive nature of the investigation.  I have been meeting with an 
attorney who represents the national president of the Iron Horsem[e]n 
Motorcycle Club regarding this incident to try to ensure that no other 
incidents of violence or retribution will occur as a result of the 
confrontation at J.D.’s.  That being said, it is impossible for any of us 
to guarantee that any and all individuals will comply with this 
direction therefore; we are taking all necessary precautions to help 
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protect the lives of any and all police officers; and their families, in 
the entire region. 
 
{¶ 7} An attorney for the city specified that the city was willing to provide 
the Enquirer with redacted copies of the requested records. 
{¶ 8} On December 22, 2010, the Enquirer filed a complaint in the Court of 
Appeals for Hamilton County for a writ of mandamus to compel the police chief to 
make the requested records available for inspection and copying.  The Enquirer also 
sought an award of attorney fees.  In its memorandum in support, the Enquirer 
admitted that it did not object to certain redactions, including the home addresses of 
the police officers.  The police chief submitted an answer denying the Enquirer’s 
entitlement to the writ, and the parties submitted stipulated evidence, including 
depositions of Police Chief Streicher, which included portions that were sealed. 
{¶ 9} On September 9, 2011, the court of appeals denied the writ and the 
request for attorney fees. 
{¶ 10} This cause is now before the court upon the Enquirer’s appeal as of 
right. 
Legal Analysis 
Mandamus 
{¶ 11} “Mandamus is the appropriate remedy to compel compliance with 
R.C. 149.43, Ohio’s Public Records Act.”  State ex rel. Physicians Commt. for 
Responsible Medicine v. Ohio State Univ. Bd. of Trustees, 108 Ohio St.3d 288, 2006-
Ohio-903, 843 N.E.2d 174, ¶ 6; R.C. 149.43(C)(1).  “We construe the Public 
Records Act liberally in favor of broad access and resolve any doubt in favor of 
disclosure of public records.”  State ex rel. Rocker v. Guernsey Cty. Sheriff’s Office, 
126 Ohio St.3d 224, 2010-Ohio-3288, 932 N.E.2d 327, ¶ 6. 
{¶ 12} “Exceptions to disclosure under the Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43, 
are strictly construed against the public-records custodian, and the custodian has the 
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burden to establish the applicability of an exception.  A custodian does not meet this 
burden if it has not proven that the requested records fall squarely within the 
exception.”  State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Jones-Kelley, 118 Ohio St.3d 81, 
2008-Ohio-1770, 886 N.E.2d 206, paragraph two of the syllabus. 
Constitutional Right of Privacy 
{¶ 13} The police chief asserts, and the court of appeals held, that the 
requested identifying information of the wounded police officers was excepted from 
disclosure based on the constitutional right of privacy.  R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(v) excepts 
“[r]ecords the release of which is prohibited by state or federal law” from the 
definition of “public record.”  “Constitutional privacy rights are ‘state or federal law’ 
under R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(v) * * *.”  State ex rel. Plain Dealer Publishing Co. v. 
Cleveland, 106 Ohio St.3d 70, 2005-Ohio-3807, 831 N.E.2d 787, ¶ 58; see also State 
ex rel. Beacon Journal Publishing Co. v. Roberts, 70 Ohio St.3d 605, 640 N.E.2d 
164 (1994) (federal right of privacy protects against governmental disclosure of city 
employees’ Social Security numbers); State ex rel. McCleary v. Roberts, 88 Ohio 
St.3d 365, 725 N.E.2d 1144 (2000) (federal right of privacy prevents disclosure of 
personal information of children kept by city recreation department). 
{¶ 14} Officers have a fundamental constitutional interest in preventing the 
release of private information when disclosure would create a substantial risk of 
serious bodily harm, and possibly even death, “from a perceived likely threat,” so 
that any such disclosure by the state should be measured under strict scrutiny. 
Kallstrom v. Columbus, 136 F.3d 1055, 1064 (6th Cir.1998) (“Kallstrom I”).  And 
“[w]here state action infringes upon a fundamental right, such action will be upheld 
under the substantive due process component of the Fourteenth Amendment only 
where the governmental action furthers a compelling state interest, and is narrowly 
drawn to further the state interest.”  Id. 
{¶ 15} In Kallstrom I, three undercover Columbus police officers who had 
testified at the drug-conspiracy trial of members of the Short North Posse, a violent 
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Columbus gang, brought a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against the city.  The officers 
alleged that the city had violated their constitutional right to privacy by 
disseminating information from their personnel files, including their addresses, 
phone numbers, and driver’s licenses, and the names, addresses, and phone numbers 
of their immediate family members to defense counsel for the gang members who 
were being tried.  Counsel then appeared to have passed on the information to the 
defendants.  The city had also released one police officer’s personnel file to the 
Police Officers for Equal Rights organization. 
{¶ 16} After the federal district court ruled that the officers had no general 
constitutional right of privacy that shielded them from the city’s release of their 
personal information, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.  The court of 
appeals held that because this disclosure “placed the officers and their families at 
substantial risk of serious bodily harm, the prior release of this information 
encroached upon their fundamental rights to privacy and personal security under the 
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”  Because the city did not 
establish that “its prior actions narrowly served a compelling state interest, its release 
of this personal information to defense counsel in the [criminal] case 
unconstitutionally denied the officers a fundamental liberty interest.”  Id. at 1069-
1070. 
{¶ 17} We relied on Kallstrom I to hold that a federal public defender was 
not entitled to a writ of mandamus to compel the disclosure of personal information 
in a police officer’s personnel records, because the information was protected by the 
constitutional right of privacy.  State ex rel. Keller v. Cox, 85 Ohio St.3d 279, 282, 
707 N.E.2d 931 (1999).   
{¶ 18} Both Kallstrom I and Keller were cited by the court of appeals to hold 
that the requested identifying information of the two wounded officers in the 
September 2010 shooting at JD’s Honky Tonk bar was exempted from disclosure 
under R.C. 149.43 by the constitutional right of privacy.  The Enquirer argues that 
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the court of appeals erred for several reasons: it failed to focus on the threat posed by 
the requesting party, it did not properly apply the federal district court’s decision on 
remand following Kallstrom I, the records that were requested do not contain 
sensitive information, and the former police chief failed to demonstrate that any real 
threat existed to the wounded officers.  For the following reasons, the Enquirer’s 
arguments lack merit. 
{¶ 19} First, with respect to release to the Enquirer, as the Sixth Circuit in 
Kallstrom I observed when the city had disclosed information in that case, the 
district court had determined that 
 
although there was no indication that the Police Officers for Equal 
Rights organization posed any threat to the officers and their family 
members, disclosure even to that group of the officers’ phone 
numbers, addresses, and driver’s licenses, and their family members’ 
names, addresses and phone numbers “increases the risk that the 
information will fall into the wrong hands.” 
 
Id., 136 F.3d at 1064.  The Enquirer’s reliance on a subsequent case to suggest 
otherwise is misplaced because there the corrections officers’ names and general 
whereabouts were already known to the prisoners requesting information.  Barber v. 
Overton, 496 F.3d 449, 456 (6th Cir.2007).  That is not the case here, and 
furthermore, in both Kallstrom I and Keller, although defense attorneys rather than 
the criminal defendants had requested the information, neither case focused on the 
threat posed by the attorneys themselves.  We have cited Kallstrom I for the 
proposition that the mere fact that the requesting party did not pose a threat did not 
require disclosure of the personal information sought.  McCleary, 88 Ohio St.3d at 
371, 725 N.E.2d 1144 (“disclosure of personal information, even to a benevolent 
organization posing no apparent threat to the safety of officers or their families, 
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increases the risk that the information will fall into the wrong hands.  [Kallstrom I] 
136 F.3d at 1064”). 
{¶ 20} Second, the court of appeals correctly determined that the federal 
district court’s decision on remand from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision 
in Kallstrom I did not require that it order the disclosure of the requested identifying 
information of the wounded officers to the Enquirer.  Kallstrom v. Columbus, 165 
F.Supp.2d 686 (S.D.Ohio, 2001) (“Kallstrom II”).  In Kallstrom II, the federal 
district court noted that on remand, the plaintiffs “failed to provide any potentially 
admissible evidence to suggest that the release of any information contained in the 
three personnel files may place any of the plaintiffs at any risk of serious bodily 
harm,” “[n]or have they identified a current ‘perceived likely threat.’ ”  Id. at 695.  
By contrast, the evidence here, including those portions sealed by the court of 
appeals, included credible evidence of a perceived likely threat that the Iron 
Horsemen motorcycle gang would retaliate against the wounded officers for killing 
the gang’s national enforcer.  This was supported by Streicher’s historical knowledge 
of the circumstances, past instances of threats made by the Iron Horsemen against 
the Cincinnati police, and the confidential information confirming the threat against 
the officers.  Further, there is no evidence in the record here—unlike the record in 
Kallstrom II—that the police chief and the city treated the Enquirer differently from 
other members of the public who could have requested the same information about 
the wounded officers.  Compare Kallstrom II at 697-699.  Although the Enquirer 
relies on an alleged statement made by Streicher’s counsel in a memorandum in 
opposition to the complaint, the police chief argues that another statement in that 
same document proved otherwise, and that document is not included in the record on 
appeal. 
{¶ 21} Third, there is no evidence to support the Enquirer’s contention that 
“by redacting the officers’ names, Chief Streicher has blocked any meaningful 
review of * * * information” relating to discipline and citizen complaints of the 
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wounded officers.  Rather, as the court of appeals noted, “[t]he parties’ counsel 
agreed at oral argument that all the requested documents had been disclosed, except 
that the officers’ identities had been redacted.”  2011-Ohio-4498 at ¶ 32.  Therefore, 
information contained in the wounded police officers’ requested personnel files 
relating to discipline and citizen complaints has already been made available to the 
Enquirer. 
{¶ 22} Finally, as previously noted, the evidence established that the release 
of the identities of the wounded police officers would place them at risk of serious 
bodily harm and possibly even death from a perceived likely threat and that the 
disclosure of their identities was not narrowly tailored to achieve the public purpose 
of examining the performance of the police.  The sealed portions of Streicher’s 
deposition relating to confidential information confirming the existence of threatened 
retaliation against the wounded officers were admissible to establish his perception 
of the threat. 
{¶ 23} Therefore, the court of appeals correctly held that the requested names 
of the wounded police officers were protected from disclosure under R.C. 
149.43(A)(1)(v) by the constitutional right of privacy. 
R.C. 149.43(B)(9) Journalist Exception 
{¶ 24} The Enquirer next argues that it was entitled to the requested names 
of the wounded officers because of the exception known as the journalist exception, 
which allows journalists to obtain certain records relating to peace officers, including 
their home addresses, even if other members of the public would not be entitled to 
them.  R.C. 149.43(B)(9).  But the Enquirer conceded in the court of appeals that it 
was not entitled to the home addresses of the wounded officers, see State ex rel. 
Dispatch Printing Co. v. Johnson, 106 Ohio St.3d 160, 2005-Ohio-4384, 833 N.E.2d 
274, syllabus, and State ex rel. DeGroot v. Tilsley, 128 Ohio St.3d 311, 2011-Ohio-
231, 943 N.E.2d 1018, ¶ 8, and as the court of appeals held, any rights that the 
Enquirer has under R.C. 149.43(B)(9) cannot prevail over the officers’ constitutional 
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right of privacy.  2011-Ohio-4498, ¶ 23; see also State ex rel. Painter v. Brunner, 
128 Ohio St.3d 17, 2011-Ohio-35, 941 N.E.2d 782, ¶ 46, quoting the Supremacy 
Clause of the United States Constitution. 
Attorney Fees 
{¶ 25} Finally, because the Enquirer’s public-records claim lacked merit, the 
court of appeals correctly denied its request for attorney fees.  See State ex rel. 
Dawson v. Bloom-Carroll Local School Dist., 131 Ohio St.3d 10, 2011-Ohio-6009, 
959 N.E.2d 524, ¶ 34. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 26} In summary, the court of appeals did not err in denying the Enquirer’s 
request for extraordinary relief in mandamus and attorney fees.  The requested 
identifying information of the police officers wounded in the September 2010 
shooting was exempted from disclosure under the Public Records Act by the 
constitutional right of privacy.  We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Graydon, Head & Ritchey, L.L.P., and John C. Greiner, for appellant. 
 
John P. Curp, Cincinnati City Solicitor, and Peter J. Stackpole, Assistant City 
Solicitor, for appellee. 
______________________