Source: https://chicagojustice.org/2020/04/18/sao-foia-felony-data/
Timestamp: 2020-08-14 07:26:11
Document Index: 215732373

Matched Legal Cases: ['arts 1', 'ART 3', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'art 3', 'ART 4', 'art 4', 'art 4', 'art 4', 'ART 5', 'art 5', 'art 5', 'art 5', 'art 5', 'art 5', 'art 5', 'art 5', 'ART 6', 'art 6', 'art 6', 'ART 7', 'art 7', 'art 7', 'art 7']

FOIA: SAO 90s & 2000s Felony Data - chicagojusticeproject
This FOIA is seeking primarily felony prosecution data from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO).
Our campaign to open the SAO started with CJP filing a number of FOIAs with the agency over the course of a single year and after a series of denials ended up with us suing the Office and its leader Anita Alvarez.
That ligation was eventually resulted in a settlement agreement between CJP and the SAO just months after the Kim Foxx to control of the office. Despite her persona and the many good decisions she has made while in office the settlement was excruciatingly tough to get resolved with her staff. The settlement resulted in CJP obtaining a little over 7 years of felony prosecution data.
The problem moving forward is that her office has taken a political stance that they make enough information available online and that the FOIA law no longer applies to the office. Obviously, this is a stance that CJP will not let stand without confronting head on. This series of FOIA requests we submitted to the SAO on April 18, 2020. Check back often as we will be posting any responses we get from the SAO.
SAO FOIA #1:
All case level felony prosecution data for the years 1990-2000.
A. This includes any such data in any database including the Crimes Database.
B. This includes any such data in CIBERlaw ELitE 8.0 and/or prior, current, or future versions of same.
C. This data should be de-identified so that identities of victims and witnesses are removed.
D. The identities of all employees of public bodies who are not a victim or a witness should remain within the data, and not be removed.
E. All address data related to crime location should be reduced to the hundred block.
F. The data should be exported in machine-ready delimited format and not in a proprietary format.
G. All fields that are not released due to one or more exemptions should have their contents thoroughly detailed, and the reasons for withholding each individual field cited.
The data dictionary that defines the contents of each table and field in any database that holds this data (including the Crimes Database) should be included.
All materials used to train Your personnel on how to use the database(s) used to hold the data requested in 1 and 2 above, including the Crimes Database.
SAO FOIA #2
All case level felony prosecution data for the years 2000-2010.
The data dictionary that defines the contents of each table and field in the database (including the Crimes Database) should be included.
SAO FOIA #3
All records related to the purchase, maintenance or upkeep of the database(s) referenced in FOIAs 1-2 above, including but not limited to the Crimes Database software and any updates to the Crimes Database software.
To the extent it is different than FOIA #3(1) above, all records related to the purchase, maintenance or upkeep of CIBERlaw ELitE 8.0 and/or prior, current, or future versions of same.
To the extent it is different from FOIA #3(1) and (2) above, all documents related to “Annual CIBERLaw”.
Without limiting the scope of above requests in any way, in order to give the Agency as much information to perform as complete of a search as possible, the requested records should include at a minimum:
o Including but not limited to the July 12, 2005 Board Approval of $2,975,000 to Ciber, Inc. and any and all related paperwork;
o Including but not limited to Requisition Number 00099753 OC and all related paperwork, and all similar or related Requisitions for the same or related software;
o Including but not limited to Internal Req Number 12500049, and all similar or related Requisitions for the same software;
o Including but not limited to annual Requisitions to Ciber (as defined herein) and all related paperwork and/or Ciber customer ID 04107CCSA008 and/or Cook County Government vendor number 735841;
o Including but not limited to Requisitions related to System #OC 99753, and all similar or related Requisitions for the same software;
o Including but not limited to bids by Ciber (as defined herein);
o Including but not limited to Purchase Order 179146-0000-OP dated 12/7/2011 for $128,500, and all related paperwork, and all similar or related or annual Purchase orders and Requisitions for the same software;
o Including but not limited to Ciber Invoice 04-68687870, and all similar or related Requisitions for the same software;
o Including but not limited to payments on Invoice 04-68687870 and/or voucher dated 11/22/2011 on invoice 04-68687870 and all similar or related records of payments;
SAO FOIA #4
All records related to maintenance and/or updates of the database(s) referenced in FOIAs 1-2 above, including but not limited to the Crimes Database software, since the purchase of the database(s). These records should include:
A. All manuals for these databases including the Crimes Database software.
B. All policies and procedures for the databases including the Crimes Database software.
C. All materials used to train personnel on how to use the updated software.
SAO FOIA #5
Non-privileged correspondence (including email) related to the Crimes Database (as defined below).
Correspondence (including email) with Ciber (as defined below) from July 12, 2004 to the present.
Contracts, agreements or licenses between You and Ciber (as defined below).
Ciber manuals, instructions, teaching materials, powerpoints, binders, and like materials related to Ciber’s work for You and/or delivered by Ciber to you in the course of Ciber’s work for You.
Correspondence to or from Robert Ryan, Jr. and/or Robert E. Ryan, Jr. (Robert.Ryan@cookcountyil.gov) related to Ciber, Annual CIBERlaw, CIBERlaw ELitE 8.0 and/or prior, current, or future versions of same, and/or the Crimes Database (as defined below).
Correspondence to or from Patricia Katsenis related to Ciber, Annual CIBERlaw, CIBERlaw ELitE 8.0 and/or prior, current, or future versions of same, and/or the Crimes Database (as defined below).
Correspondence to or from Lean Mak related to Ciber, Annual CIBERlaw, CIBERlaw ELitE 8.0 and/or prior, current, or future versions of same, and/or the Crimes Database (as defined below).
Correspondence to or from Mike Carroll related to Ciber, Annual CIBERlaw, CIBERlaw ELitE 8.0 and/or prior, current, or future versions of same, and/or the Crimes Database (as defined below).
Correspondence between You and Michael Navarro.
Correspondence related to any of the documents disclosed at http://opendocs.cookcountyil.gov/procurement/contracts/Q-99753-OR.pdf
SAO FOIA #6
A list of all types or categories of records currently under Your control, as provided in 5 ILCS 140/5.
SAO FOIA #7
Records sufficient to show Your efforts to locate and produce the records requested in FOIAs 1-5 above. This should include:
A. Where you searched for responsive Records and Documents.
B. Who searched for responsive Records and Documents.
C. Who was requested to produce responsive Records and Documents.
D. The identity of any Records and Documents that were located but not produced for any reason.
The “Crimes Database” means any database used by You to store or share information related to arrests, crimes, or prosecutions. In particular this includes databases known by or referred to by any or all of the following names:
· http://www.ciber.com
“You” or “Your” means the Cook County State’s Attorney, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, and any or all attorneys, employees, officers, directors, bureaus, offices, agents, divisions or subdivisions of same.
5/5 – The SOA sent you an extension on April 27, 2020 and on May 4, 2020, you agreed to a one day extension.
The SAO is now responding.
As you are surely aware, the country, state, and county are amid a public health crisis due to the novel Coronavirus. Although the SAO is open, in the interests of public health and safety, most SAO employees are working remotely in an attempt to continue core functions while protecting the health of SAO employees and the public. Under Section 3(g) of FOIA (“Section 3(g)”), “[r]equests calling for all records falling within a category shall be complied with unless compliance with the request would be unduly burdensome for the complying public body and there is no way to narrow the request and the burden on the public body outweighs the public interest in the information.” With all this in mind, we note that as a general matter, all the subparts of your requests are categorical in nature and without limitation in time or scope insofar as they seek entire categories of records. A category is defined as “a class or division.” Oxford Pocket American Dictionary (2002). Further, your use of the expanding language as included in your instructions which are a rider to your request and quoted above, specifically, ““any,” “all,” “any/all,” “any or all,” “any and all,” “and,” “or,” and “and/or” are always to be interpreted inclusively to the greatest extent legally permitted” expands your request to every conceivable related record to the already sweeping categories of records you seek. Finally, your instructions define the term “document” to relate to any conceivable type of record, including those already destroyed.
PARTS ONE AND TWO OF YOUR REQUEST ARE UNDULY BURDENSOME
Please be advised that as to parts one and two of your request, to the extent that these datasets were already produced to you in 2017 as a result of a prior request you made on behalf of the Chicago Justice Project, producing these records to you anew would be unduly burdensome under FOIA. Under Section 3(g) of FOIA (“Section 3(g)”), “repeated requests from the same person for the same records that are unchanged or identical to records previously provided or properly denied under this Act” are unduly burdensome under pursuant to section 3(g) of FOIA. Accordingly, parts one and two of your request are unduly burdensome.
However, even if this request were not a duplicate request, parts one and two of your request are still unduly burdensome because after discussion and consultation with SAO personnel most knowledgeable about the existence of responsive data, complying with parts one and two of your request would take hundreds of hours to complete. Specifically, in order to comply with this request, an SAO employee would have to devise a process that would allow for data to be extracted from its datasets that do not contain personal or private information which would be exempt under FOIA. By way of background, to the extent that the SAO tracks information regarding every offense prosecuted or handled since 1990 which is responsive to parts one and two of your request, it is in the form of millions of entries in a very large database with over 700 tables and over 7,000 columns. Quite literally, the SAO would have to go through data for millions of people. Because of the way the information is maintained in the database, private and personal information is not readily segregable. Therefore, a SAO employee would need to devise and test ways to run a search so as to pull all responsive, but non-exempt data. Because personal and private information appear throughout the database in ways that are not consistent or predictable and a manual review of each entry is impossible due to the size of the database, the only way pull the responsive data in a way that excludes exempt information would be to devise a process that outlines the different ways personal and private information could appear and create a series of checks that would need to be tested and checked until a process is devised that is successful in filtering out personal and private information. Though an estimate of how long it would take a SAO employee to complete such a process is difficult to estimate, from knowledge and experience, such efforts would likely take one SAO employee hundreds of hours to complete. Again, not only has this data already been produced to you, the vast majority of the information that you seek is readily available online at : https://datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov/browse?tags=state%27s+attorney+case-level&sortBy=most_accessed . Thus, the burden to the SAO in producing the data responsive to parts one and two of your request is not outweighed by the public interest in the records, especially when they have already been produced to you, are largely available online, and would require SAO personnel to devote hundreds of hours to complete during a pandemic where most SAO personnel are working from home. Accordingly, parts 1 and 2 of your request is unduly burdensome.
Please note that to the extent that your request asks for a data dictionary, please be advised that the only responsive record that exists, it is in draft form and is currently in the process of being evaluated and finalized. Accordingly, it is withheld as exempt pursuant to section 7(1)(f) of FOIA (5 ILCS 140/7(1)(f) (West 2016)) which exempts from disclosure “[p]reliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated, except that a specific record or relevant portion of a record shall not be exempt when the record is publicly cited and identified by the head of the public body.” In this instance, the data dictionary you seek is a preliminary draft. Accordingly, it is exempt pursuant to section 7(1)(f) of FOIA.
PART 3 OF YOUR REQUEST IS UNDULY BURDENSOME.
As to part 3 of your request, which seeks procurement related records regarding the CRIMES database, the database that the SAO uses to track criminal cases created by Ciber, Inc., a vendor no longer in business, please be advised that as a general matter, as to procurement for the CRIMES database (or any other product or service sought by the SAO), while such a request would initiate within the SAO, all efforts made to acquire a product or service would be handled by the Cook County Office of the Chief Procurement Officer and invoices and payment records would be maintained by the Cook County Comptroller’s Office, not the SAO. Further, FOIA only requires that a public body search its own records in response to a FOIA request and is not obliged to seek records from third parties in response to a FOIA request. Duncan Publishing, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 304 Ill. App. 3d 778, 782 (1st Dist. 1999). Therefore, because the SAO is not the public body who would be principally involved in creating or maintaining those records, by and large, the SAO would not possess these records. However, to the extent that SAO personnel were involved in the initial process to procure the CRIMES database, which began in 2005, the SAO employees that worked on that endeavor are no longer with the SAO. Moreover, to the extent that the SAO would have retained any hard copy files regarding the procurement of the CRIMES system, because the retention period for all such records is seven (7) years, the SAO would possess no responsive hard copy records for the procurement of the system. Therefore, to the extent that the SAO would possess any records responsive to part three of your request, they would be limited to records retained on the SAO email system. Accordingly, a search was conducted on the SAO email system using the term “Ciber,” from July 12, 2004 to the date of your request. This search generated 13,745 email records. Accordingly, responding to part 3 of your request is unduly burdensome under FOIA. Again, under section 3(g) of FOIA (“Section 3(g)”), “[r]equests calling for all records falling within a category shall be complied with unless compliance with the request would be unduly burdensome for the complying public body and there is no way to narrow the request and the burden on the public body outweighs the public interest in the information.” In this instance, reviewing emails, at a conservative rate of review of minute a page, would take an employee almost 230 hours to review. Moreover, this number assumes the emails are one page each, but many emails would surely be longer or have attachments. This means that responding to part three of your request for only a six-year period of your requested time range would likely take much more than 230 hours to complete. Thus, the burden to the SAO in producing the records responsive to part three of your request is not outweighed by the public interest in the records which would require SAO personnel to devote hundreds of hours to complete during a pandemic where most SAO personnel are working from home. Accordingly, part 3 of your request is unduly burdensome.
PART 4 OF YOUR REQUEST.
As to part four of your request for records related to maintenance and/or updates of the database(s) which you indicate includes manuals and training materials, after a reasonable search and a discussion with SAO personnel most knowledgeable about the existence of responsive records, please be advised that any maintenance to the CRIMES database is not done via scheduled maintenance. Rather, it is done via problem solving which is performed by SAO personnel on an as-needed basis. As such, any such records would be limited to internal email records and a search for responsive records spanning the years of your request would require an email search like the one described previously using the same terms and date restrictions. Again, a search was conducted on the SAO email system using the term “Ciber,” from July 12, 2004 to the date of your request. This search generated 13,745 email records. Accordingly, responding to part 4 of your request is unduly burdensome under FOIA. In this instance, reviewing emails, at a conservative rate of review of minute a page, would take an employee almost 230 hours to review. Moreover, this number assumes the emails are one page each but many emails would surely be longer or have attachments. This means that responding to part three of your request for only a six-year period of your requested time range would likely take much more than 230 hours to complete. Thus, the burden to the SAO in producing the records responsive to part four of your request is not outweighed by the public interest in the records which would require SAO personnel to devote hundreds of hours to complete during a pandemic where most SAO personnel are working from home. Accordingly, to the extent that part 4 of your request seeks CRIMES database maintenance records, this part of your part 4 of your request is is unduly burdensome.
To the extent you seek records regarding manuals or training materials for the CRIMES database, attached please find responsive records.
PART 5 OF YOUR REQUEST IS UNDULY BURDENSOME.
As to part 5 of your request, which seeks email records regarding the CRIMES database, please be advised that again, a search was conducted on the SAO email system using the term “Ciber,” from July 12, 2014 to the date of your request. Please note that this search only encompassed records for one portion of part 5 of your request. This search generated 13,745 email records. Accordingly, responding to part 5 of your request is unduly burdensome under FOIA. Again, under section 3(g) of FOIA (“Section 3(g)”), “[r]equests calling for all records falling within a category shall be complied with unless compliance with the request would be unduly burdensome for the complying public body and there is no way to narrow the request and the burden on the public body outweighs the public interest in the information.” In this instance, just to review responsive emails from the first part of part 5 of your request and not even including the emails responsive to the rest of part 5, at a conservative rate of review of minute a page, would take an employee almost 230 hours to review. Moreover, this assumes the emails are one page each and many emails would surely be longer or have attachments. This means that again, responding to just one portion of part 5 of your request for only a six-year period of your requested time range would likely take much more than 230 hours to complete. Thus, the burden to the SAO in producing the records responsive to part five of your request is not outweighed by the public interest in the records which would require SAO personnel to devote hundreds of hours to complete during a pandemic where most SAO personnel are working from home. Accordingly, part 5 of your request is unduly burdensome.
PART 6 OF YOUR REQUEST
In response to the first of part 6 of your request for a list of documents maintained by the SAO, please be advised that the SAO maintains the following records:
Employee applications and supporting documentation
FOIA request and responses
SAO personnel records
Statistical Reports and time records
Budget work sheets and supporting documents
Check copies and stubs
Criminal and civil case files
No probable cause case files
In response to the second part of part 6 of your request for a “[a] description of the manner in which public records stored by means of electronic data processing may be obtained from You,” please be advised that the SAO maintains some electronic case files for its criminal and civil cases.
PART 7 OF YOUR REQUEST ASKS FOR MATERIALS EXEMPT UNDER FOIA.
Finally, in response to part 7 of your request for “[r]ecords sufficient to show Your efforts to locate and produce the records requested, please be advised that insofar as the sub parts of part 7 of your request require the SAO to create lists (of where SAO employees looked for responsive records and who performed searches or produced records and what was determined to be lost or destroyed), please be advised that the SAO is not in possession of a record which contains the information you seek. Therefore, the only way to compile the requested information would be to create a document. While the FOIA requires a public body to produce documents (5 ILCS 140/3(a) (“Each public body shall make available to any person for inspection or copying all public records, except as otherwise provided in section 7 of this Act.”), the FOIA does not require a public body to provide answers to questions or create documents. The plain language of section 1 of the FOIA states that the “Act is not intended to create an obligation on the part of any public body to maintain or prepare any public record which was not maintained or prepared by such public body at the time when this Act becomes effective, except as otherwise required by applicable local, State or federal law.” 5 ILCS 140/1. In Kenyon v. Garrels, 184 Ill. App. 3d 28, 32 (4th Dist. 1989), the Illinois Appellate Court noted,
“…the Act is not designed to compel the compilation of data the governmental body does not ordinarily keep.” See also: Chicago Tribune Company v. The Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, 2014 IL App (4th) 13042, ¶ 34. Accordingly, to the extent that part 7 of your request seeks existing records which would detail the efforts undertaken by SAO FOIA to respond to your request, please be advised that they would be limited to email records, all of which are properly withheld pursuant to section 7(1)(f) of FOIA (5 ILCS 140/7(1)(f) (West 2016)) which exempts from disclosure “[p]reliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated, except that a specific record or relevant portion of a record shall not be exempt when the record is publicly cited and identified by the head of the public body.” In this instance, the responsive records you seek are in the form of email correspondence, all of which contain the SAO’s internal deliberations regarding how to responds to this FOIA request. Accordingly, it is all exempt pursuant to section 7(1)(f) of FOIA.
Please be advised that as has already been expressed to you previously, to the extent that part of this FOIA request are unduly burdensome, the SAO offers you the opportunity to confer with the SAO to narrow the scope of this request or to accommodate your request in some other way.
You have a right to appeal this decision to Sarah Pratt, Public Access Counselor, Office of the Illinois Attorney General, 500 S. 2nd Street, Springfield, Illinois 62706, (phone number 1-877-299-FOIA) or to seek judicial review under Section 11 of FOIA, 5 ILCS 140/11 (2020).
/s/Martha Jimenez
Interim FOIA Officer
4/24 – Please see the attached request for an extension…
PDF Version: 4.24.20SISKAEXTENSION
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