Opinion ID: 2959659
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Redactions in the District’s First Production

Text: Trial court rulings “come with a presumption of correctness and . . . it is the responsibility of the appellant to furnish an appellate record evidencing the claimed trial court error.”9 Failure of the appellant to fulfill this responsibility “precludes appellate review of the alleged error.”10 8 Br. for Appellant 15 (emphasis added). 9 Hill v. Medlantic HealthCare Grp., 933 A.2d 314, 335 n.21 (D.C. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Cobb v. Standard Drug Co., 453 A.2d 110, 111 (D.C. 1982) (“The responsibility of perfecting the record remains with appellant and cannot be shifted to either the trial court or this court.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); D.C. App. R. 11 (a) (“An appellant filing a notice of appeal must comply with Rule 10 (b) [concerning the appellant’s duty to order the necessary transcript of proceedings] and must do whatever else is necessary to enable the Clerk of the Superior Court to assemble and forward the record.”). 10 Mbakpuo v. Ekeanyanwu, 738 A.2d 776, 780 (D.C. 1999). 13 Although it contends that the Superior Court erred in approving unnecessary redactions in the five sample disciplinary files examined in camera, the FOP has failed to ensure that the documents necessary for us to evaluate this contention are before us in the record on appeal. The FOP did not arrange for the unredacted files to be transmitted to us under seal,11 nor for the redacted files or even its binder of sample redacted pages to be included in the record on appeal. As a result, this court has no way to identify the redactions still in dispute, let alone to assess whether those redactions were proper.12 That the redactions in the first production may have been more extensive than those in the subsequent production (which is something else we cannot verify) is too superficial a comparison to demonstrate 11 “Any documents the court has reviewed in camera to which court personnel . . . do not have routine access cannot be part of the record transmitted to us unless the trial court so directs under proper security procedures—a transmittal that [appellant’s] counsel has responsibility to arrange by filing a proper motion with the trial judge.” Hammon v. United States, 695 A.2d 97, 102–03 (D.C. 1997) (holding that a trial court’s determination of competency could not be reviewed on appeal where the appellant failed to arrange for the transmittal of the records that the trial court reviewed in camera). 12 Unsurprisingly, in FOIA cases where trial courts have reviewed records in camera to evaluate the government’s claimed exemptions, appellate courts generally find it necessary to review the documents in camera as well. E.g. Grand Cent. P’ship, Inc. v. Cuomo, 166 F.3d 473, 478 n.2 (2d Cir. 1999); Spirko v. U.S Postal Serv., 147 F.3d 992, 999 (D.C. Cir. 1998); Hale v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 99 F.3d 1025, 1029 n.4 (10th Cir. 1996); Patterson v. FBI, 893 F.2d 595, 601 (3d Cir. 1990); Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n v. U.S. Forest Serv., 861 F.2d 1114, 1116, 1123 (9th Cir. 1988); Arenberg v. DEA, 849 F.2d 579, 581 (11th Cir. 1988). 14 that the Superior Court, which actually examined the redactions in the first production, erred in finding them justified.13