IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Tricia Mezzacappa :

:

v. : No. 1312 C.D. 2021

:

Northampton County, :

Appellant : Submitted: August 5, 2022

BEFORE: HONORABLE PATRICIA A. McCULLOUGH, Judge

HONORABLE ELLEN CEISLER, Judge

HONORABLE BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER, Senior Judge

OPINION NOT REPORTED

MEMORANDUM OPINION BY

JUDGE CEISLER FILED: April 6, 2023

Northampton County (County) appeals from the decision of the Court of 

Common Pleas of Northampton County (Trial Court) affirming a final determination 

by the Office of Open Records (Open Records), which directed the County to 

comply with a request for records pursuant to the Right-to-Know Law (RTKL).1 The 

request called for mug shots taken of two named persons allegedly detained at the 

Northampton County Prison (Prison). The County maintains that the records are 

exempt from release by the Criminal History Record Information Act (CHRIA), 18 

Pa.C.S. §§ 9101-9183, as well as the RTKL itself, and that the Trial Court failed to 

give proper consideration to the difficulties of fulfilling the request. 

Patricia Mezzacappa (Requester) submitted her request for the two mug shots 

on November 9, 2020. Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 8a. Following a 30-day 

1 Act of February 14, 2008, P.L. 6, 65 P.S. §§ 67.101-.3104. One of Open Records’ duties 

under the RTKL is to assign appeals officers to review, when challenged, decisions by local 

agencies in response to RTKL requests and issue orders and opinions on those challenges. 

Allegheny Cnty. Dep’t of Admin. Servs. v. A Second Chance, Inc., 13 A.3d 1025, 1027 n.1 (Pa. 

Cmwlth. 2011). 
2

extension,2the County issued a denial of the request on December 15, 2020. Id. 

Requester then submitted a second RTKL request on December 28, 2020, asking for 

mug shots of everyone admitted to the Prison from October 1, 2020, until the date of 

the request. That request was also denied. See Mezzacappa v. Northampton County

(Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1229 C.D. 2021, filed April 6, 2023) (Mezzacappa II). 

Requester appealed from both denials separately, Open Records granted both 

appeals separately, and the County appealed from each determination separately to 

the Trial Court.3 The Trial Court then affirmed Open Records’ determinations with 

separate orders, and the matters have consequently reached this Court as separate 

cases. However, the underlying facts and legal issues are substantially the same. In 

Mezzacappa II, we held that the requested mug shots are not exempt from release 

under either CHRIA or the RTKL’s own exceptions (provided in Section 708 of the 

RTKL, 65 P.S. § 67.708), and must therefore be released. For the reasons set forth 

in that opinion, we affirm the Trial Court’s order. 

____________________________

ELLEN CEISLER, Judge

2 Under certain circumstances, Section 902(a)-(b) permits an agency to extend its response 

time to a RTK request by 30 days with written notice to the requester. 65 P.S. § 67.902(a)-(b). 

3 For reasons not made clear in the record, the appeal from the determination involving the 

later request was placed on the Trial Court’s docket first.
IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Tricia Mezzacappa :

:

v. : No. 1312 C.D. 2021

:

Northampton County, :

Appellant :

O R D E R

AND NOW, this 6

th day of April, 2023, the order of the Court of Common 

Pleas of Northampton County in the above-captioned matter, dated October 26, 

2021, is hereby AFFIRMED. 

____________________________

ELLEN CEISLER, Judge
IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Tricia Mezzacappa :

:

v. : No. 1312 C.D. 2021

:

Northampton County, : Submitted: August 5, 2022

Appellant :

BEFORE: HONORABLE PATRICIA A. McCULLOUGH, Judge

HONORABLE ELLEN CEISLER, Judge

HONORABLE BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER, Senior Judge

OPINION NOT REPORTED

DISSENTING OPINION 

BY JUDGE McCULLOUGH FILED: April 6, 2023

Respectfully, I must dissent. The Criminal History Record Information 

Act’s (CHRIA)

1 definition of “criminal history record information” includes “mug 

shots” because they are “identifiable descriptions.” CHRIA prohibits dissemination 

of certain criminal history record information to “an individual or non-criminal 

justice agency.” 18 Pa. C.S. § 9121. CHRIA defines “criminal history record 

information” in the following way:

Information collected by criminal justice agencies 

concerning individuals, and arising from the initiation of a 

criminal proceeding, consisting of identifiable 

descriptions, dates and notations of arrests, indictments, 

informations or other formal criminal charges and any 

dispositions arising therefrom. The term does not include 

intelligence information, investigative information or 

treatment information, including medical and 

1

18 Pa. C.S. §§ 9101-9183.
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psychological information, or information and records 

specified in section 9104 (relating to scope).

18 Pa. C.S. § 9102 (emphasis added).

The Pennsylvania Attorney General has published an extensive CHRIA 

guide that outlines the policies and procedures. See Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 

Office of Attorney General, Criminal History Record Information Act Handbook 

(7th ed. 2013) (hereinafter “CHRIA Handbook”). The Attorney General’s 

interpretation is “entitled to great weight.” McDowell v. Good Chevrolet-Cadillac, 

Inc., 154 A.2d 497 (Pa. 1959) (citing Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Board of Finance 

and Revenue, 84 A.2d 495 (Pa. 1951)). Tellingly, the CHRIA Handbook notes that 

criminal history record information “can be contained on a ‘rap sheet,’ photograph 

‘mug shot,’ fingerprint cards, and reports,” and notes that “[t]his is not a complete 

list but some of the more common places to find criminal history record 

information.” Id. at 5 (emphasis added).

The Majority Opinion concludes that mugshots do not constitute 

“identifiable descriptions” because the word “description” is most often used in 

reference to written or spoken language. In my view, the Majority Opinion’s 

interpretation is much too narrow and leads to unreasonable results. Pennsylvania’s 

Statutory Construction Act of 1972 directs that a court should presume that the 

legislature did not intend a result that is “absurd, impossible of execution or 

unreasonable.” 1 Pa. C.S. §§ 1922(1). In enacting CHRIA, the Pennsylvania 

legislature sought, inter alia, “to protect individual privacy and dignity.” See Taha 

v. Bucks County Pennsylvania, No. 12-6867, 2014 WL 695205, at *8 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 

21, 2014) (citing In re Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board, 16 Pa. D. & C. 5th 

435, 445 (Pa. Com. Pl. 2010)). To protect a written description of an individual but 

not his photographic mugshot seems counterintuitive. Therefore, I believe that 
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interpreting CHRIA as including a written description but not a photograph is 

unreasonable. A person is identifiable by his photograph more easily than by his

written description. The inclusion of a photograph within the term description has 

long been recognized in the law. As one Court noted, “[a] photograph is . . . a 

pictured description.” Ligon v. Allen, 162 S.W. 536, 538 (Ky. Ct. App. 1914). 

In Taha v. Bucks County Pennsylvania, 172 F. Supp. 3d 867, 871-72 

(E.D. Pa. 2016), information regarding Daryoush Taha’s 1998 arrest and 

incarceration was released to the public on Bucks County’s Correctional Institution’s 

Inmate Lookup Tool. The information included a color photograph of Taha from 

the shoulders up, wearing a blue shirt and pictured against a gray background; sex; 

date of birth; height; weight; race; hair color; eye color; citizenship; incarceration 

location; date committed to incarceration; release date; case number for the crime 

charged; and “DC, HARASS” listed under “Charge Information.” Id. at 869. The 

District Court held that this information, including Taha’s mugshot, was 

“undoubtedly information collected by a criminal justice agency, arising from the 

initiation of a criminal proceeding, and consisting of ‘identifiable descriptions’ and 

‘formal charges.’ 18 Pa. C.S. § 9102.” Id. at 872. Given the unambiguous definition 

in CHRIA, Pennsylvania’s rules of statutory construction, relevant decisions by 

Pennsylvania courts, and the Attorney General’s CHRIA Handbook, the District 

Court found that public dissemination of the aforementioned information constituted 

criminal record history information, which violated CHRIA. 2 

2 A federal jury later found Bucks County’s conduct to be willful and in reckless disregard 

and indifference to the inmates’ privacy rights, and awarded $1,000 in damages to each of the 

67,000 inmates whose information was improperly disseminated on the website. The total jury 

award was $67 million.
PAM - 4

The Majority Opinion attempts to distinguish Taha in a footnote on the 

grounds that here, the requester is only seeking mugshots, whereas the information 

released in Taha included more information. However, CHRIA does not only forbid 

release of identifiable descriptions when it is accompanied by other information. 

CHRIA’s language is plain; the presence of any of the enumerated data identifies 

the material as criminal history record information. Taha, 172 F. Supp. 3d at 870

(rejecting county defendants’ argument that all of the listed items are necessary to 

qualify the material as criminal history record information).

I also do not agree with the Majority Opinion’s conclusion that CHRIA 

does not bar the County’s dissemination of the mugshots. CHRIA penalizes criminal 

justice agencies3for conduct such as illegally releasing criminal history record 

3 Criminal justice agency is defined as:

Criminal justice agency. Any court, including the minor judiciary, 

with criminal jurisdiction or any other governmental agency, or 

subunit thereof, created by statute or by the State or Federal 

constitutions, specifically authorized to perform as its principal 

function the administration of criminal justice, and which allocates 

a substantial portion of its annual budget to such function. Criminal 

justice agencies include, but are not limited to: organized State and 

municipal police departments, local detention facilities, county, 

regional and State correctional facilities, probation agencies, 

district or prosecuting attorneys, parole boards, pardon boards, the 

facilities and administrative offices of the Department of Public 

Welfare that provide care, guidance and control to adjudicated 

delinquents, and such agencies or subunits thereof, as are declared 

by the Attorney General to be criminal justice agencies as 

determined by a review of applicable statutes and the State and 

Federal Constitutions or both.

18 Pa. C.S. § 9102 (emphasis added).

In addition, CHRIA applies to “to persons within this Commonwealth and to any 

agency of the Commonwealth or its political subdivisions which collects, maintains, 
PAM - 5

information or releasing erroneous criminal history record information because such 

disclosures could harm a person’s reputation. King v. Mansfield University of 

Pennsylvania, No. 1:15-CV-00159, 2016 WL 6525177, at *6 (M.D. Pa. Nov. 3, 

2016). In order for protected information to be disseminated to a requesting agency, 

CHRIA requires that the agency adopt technical and physical safeguards including 

an audit trail for collecting, maintaining, tracking, and disseminating the

information. The agency must label the information to indicate the level of 

sensitivity and confidence. 18 Pa. C.S. § 9106. What this means to me is that this 

information cannot be disseminated outside of the confines and protections of 

CHRIA. Secondary dissemination is prohibited. 18 Pa. C.S. § 9106(d). In other 

words, only criminal justice agencies may request, receive, and disseminate such 

protected information under very strict regulations. 

Lastly, CHRIA penalizes agencies and political subdivisions for 

releasing criminal history record information because such disclosures could harm a 

person’s reputation. 18 Pa. C.S. § 9106(g). See Taha, King. Even if the Majority 

Opinion is correct, we must remand for the balancing test espoused by our Supreme 

Court in Pennsylvania State Education Association v. Department of Community 

and Economic Development (Office of Open Records), 148 A.3d 142, 158 (Pa. 

2016), so that the affected third parties (especially those who have been exonerated 

or who are innocent) can make the argument that their privacy interests far outweigh 

the minimal public interest in disclosure of the mugshots. The core purpose of the 

RTKL is to ensure transparency and the public understanding of the operations or 

activities of the government. I can discern no particular public purpose or interest 

that will be furthered by the wholesale dissemination of 800 mugshots. Neither 

disseminates or receives criminal history record information.” 18 Pa. C.S. § 9103 (emphasis 

added).
PAM - 6

could the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Karantsalis v. United States 

Department of Justice, 635 F.3d 497, 504 (11th Cir. 2011), which found that the 

subject had a substantial privacy interest in his mugshot, which was being sought by 

a reporters’ committee. In describing this privacy interest, the Karantsalis Court 

stated: 

a booking photograph is a unique and powerful type of 

photograph that raises personal privacy interests distinct 

from normal photographs. A booking photograph is a 

vivid symbol of criminal accusation, which, when released 

to the public, intimates, and is often equated with, guilt. 

Further, a booking photograph captures the subject in the 

vulnerable and embarrassing moments immediately after 

being accused, taken into custody, and deprived of most 

liberties. . . This Court cannot identify any particular 

public interest that would be served by releasing the 

booking photographs. 

635 F.3d at 504.

For these reasons, I respectfully dissent and would, instead, reverse the 

trial court in this case.

________________________________

PATRICIA A. McCULLOUGH, Judge