Opinion ID: 4106836
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: analysis

Text: ¶12 Before analyzing the issues raised in the petition for certiorari, we are compelled to address the district court's order making the video part of the court record in this case and ordering its preservation. See Okla. Const. art. VII, § 4. Even though the finding that the surveillance video was part of the court record and the order that it should be preserved were not appealed, the Court of Civil Appeals addressed the issue. Even after the Court of Civil Appeals agreed that the video was part of the record in these proceedings, Defendants did not seek review before this Court of the finding that it was part of the court record or of the order that the video be preserved. The finding that the video was part of the record in these proceedings is final and is no longer disputable. Hough , 1993 OK 112, ¶ 1, 867 P.2d at 440. Also, Defendants have admitted that at least one of them has retained a copy of the video and provided a copy at the hearing. Defendants have not asserted before this Court that the video is unavailable because it is in a litigation file. ¶13 One of a district court clerk's primary duties is to take custody of and preserve all materials that are part of a court's proceedings. See 12 O.S.2011, §§ 22, 29, 33; 12 O.S.2011, ch. 15, app. 1, rr. 1.28 and 1.33. Attorneys are officers of the court. 5 O.S.2011, ch. 1, app., art.1, § 2. When Defendants failed to seek review of the district court's finding that the video was part of the record and order to be preserved, the issue became final compelling the attorneys in this proceeding to observe their duty and submit the video to the court clerk for preservation as part of the record in this proceeding. We would not be faced with this issue if the district court had followed the better practice of having the video marked as an exhibit before finding it to be a part of the court record and for the court to retain a copy of the video to place in the court clerk's custody. ¶14 We now turn to the issues preserved for our review. Section 24A.8(A)(2) requires (1) a law enforcement agency (2) to allow inspection of a record (3) that contains facts concerning an arrest or the cause of arrest. Defendants implicitly define themselves as law enforcement agencies, and Plaintiff does not contest that they are. 4 Defendants do not contest that the video falls within Section 24A.8's scope of being a record of facts. 5 We laid any question of a video being a record to rest in Fabian & Assocs. v. State ex rel. Dep't of Pub. Safety , 2004 OK 67, ¶ 10, 100 P.3d 703, 705, wherein we found that the Act's definition of a record was sufficiently broad to include any method of memorializing information.
¶15 The first issue presented for resolution here is the breadth of the term arrest as used in Section 24A.8(A)(2). This is an issue of statutory construction. In construing a statute, our goal is to determine the Oklahoma Legislature's intent. Heldermon v. Wright , 2006 OK 86, ¶ 12, 152 P.3d 855, 859. The Legislature's expressed policy for the Act is to vest the people of Oklahoma with the inherent right to know and be fully informed about their government. 51 O.S.2011, § 24A.2. The Legislature's emphatic message to government agencies is, unless otherwise specifically excluded, the public must have prompt and reasonable access to records. See Fabian , 2004 OK 67, ¶¶ 11-12; 100 P.3d at 705; City of Lawton v. Moore , 1993 OK 168, ¶¶ 5-6 , 868 P.2d 690, 704-05. Because of the strong public policy allowing public access to governmental records, we must construe the Act's provisions to allow access unless an exception clearly applies, and the burden is on the public agency seeking to deny access to show a record should not be made available. Citizens Against Taxpayer Abuse, Inc. v. City of Oklahoma City , 2003 OK 65, ¶ 12, 73 P.3d 871, 875. We are mindful of the Act's policy, the Legislature's intent, and the burden of proof in our determination of the breadth of the term arrest as used in the Act. ¶16 In ascertaining the Legislature's intent, a court looks to each part of an act, to other statutes upon the same or relative subjects, to the evils and mischiefs to be remedied, and to the natural and absurd consequences of any particular interpretation. Blevins v. W.A. Graham Co. , 1919 OK 147, ¶ 8, 182 P. 247, 248. Words will be given their common meaning unless a contrary legislative intent plainly appears. 25 O.S.2011, § 1; Welch v. Crow , 2009 OK 20, ¶ 10, 206 P.3d 599, 603. ¶17 In Title 22, Section 186 of the Oklahoma Statutes, the Legislature defined arrest as taking a person into custody, that he may be held to answer for a public offense. And in Section 190, the Legislature determined that an arrest is made by an actual restraint of the person of the defendant, or by his submission to the custody of the officer. In so defining arrest, the Legislature adopted the common meaning of the term. See Arrest , Black's Law Dictionary 100 (5th ed. 1979) (To deprive a person of his liberty by legal authority); Arrest , American Heritage Dictionary 129 (2nd coll. ed. 1982) (To seize and hold under authority of the law). Custody, or restriction of liberty, is the linchpin in determining whether an arrest occurred. United States v. Leal-Felix , 665 F.3d 1037, 1043 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984)). ¶18 When Mixon appeared at the arraignment, the district court ordered that he remain in the custody of his attorney and ordered him to appear at the Cleveland County Sheriff's Department and remain in its custody until he posted bail. Mixon was not free to do as he pleased or to ignore the court's order. He was in custody so that he could be held to answer for the misdemeanor crime of Acts Resulting in Gross Injury, 21 O.S.2011, § 22. Mixon was unquestionably in custody, and thus arrested for purposes of the Act, when the district court restricted his freedom. ¶19 Defendants argue (1) that an arrest must be without consent and against the will of the defendant, citing Castellano v. State , 1978 OK CR 107, ¶ 6, 585 P.2d 361, 364; and (2) that, pursuant to Title 22, Section 187, the arrest must be made by a police officer. Defendants conclude that if either of these two elements are absent, there is no arrest. We reject Defendants' arguments. ¶20 In Fabian , 2004 OK 67, 100 P.3d 703, this Court addressed the issue of whether audio tape recordings of driver's license revocation hearings were facts concerning an arrest or the cause of an arrest. The plaintiff represented defendants in both the revocation hearing and the associated criminal proceeding. Id. ¶ 3, 100 P.3d at 704. The plaintiff sought the recordings so that he could use them in the criminal proceedings. Id . This Court agreed that the recordings of the revocation hearing were tapes contain[ing] facts concerning the arrest and must be open to the public. Id. ¶ 14, 100 P.3d at 706. This Court made no distinction between arrests of those criminal defendants coercively taken into custody by an officer and those who voluntarily appeared before the court. ¶21 Even if we determined that an arrest must be made by a police officer, and Mixon was not arrested when placed in custody by the court, Defendants' argument would nonetheless fail. When Mixon appeared at the Cleveland County Sheriff's Department and had to remain there until he posted bail, he submitted to the custody of an officer, which Title 22, Section 190 specifically allows. ¶22 Just as criminal statutes are generally construed liberally in favor of a defendant, Graham v. Miracle , 1976 OK 162, ¶ 6, 556 P.2d 605, 606, we must construe the term arrest, as used in the Act, liberally in favor of access to public records to effectuate the Legislature's intent. Heldermon , 2006 OK 86, ¶ 12, 152 P.3d at 859. Adding additional elements to the definition of arrest and its common meaning would thwart the Act's underlying legislative policy. It would allow law enforcement agencies to give preferential treatment to select defendants by allowing them to submit to a court rather than forcibly restraining them, and thus, suppressing videos depicting those defendants' violent and unbecoming behavior, while exposing the same or similar violent and unbecoming behavior of another, equally or even less culpable, defendant. If a law enforcement agency could notify a defendant of a pending arrest and allow that defendant to appear in court rather than have an officer execute a warrant, the agency could avoid the mandates of the Act. We will not attribute the Legislature with such a discriminatory intent. See Powers v. Dist. Ct. of Tulsa Cty. , 2009 OK 91, ¶ 28, 227 P.3d 1060, 1078. ¶23 The Act requires the release of records unless an exception exists. Here, Mixon was arrested, and the video is a record of the facts leading up to the arrest. Section 24A.8(A) of the Act requires the video be made available to the public, including Association, and Defendants have failed to show an exception which would allow them to deny access.
¶24 When a statute is unambiguous, its language will be applied without further inquiry as to its meaning. Ball v. Multiple Injury Tr. Fund , 2015 OK 64, ¶ 6, 360 P.3d 499, 502. But if a literal construction leads to a conflict with other provisions within an act, this Court will reconcile the statutes using rules of statutory construction. Id. This Court will consider the context of ambiguous language and will not limit its consideration to one word or phrase. Id. An inept word choice will not be construed in a manner to defeat the obvious purpose of a legislative enactment. Zaloudek Grain Co. v. Compsource Okla. , 2012 OK 75, ¶ 7, 298 P.3d 520, 523 (quoting TRW/Reda Pump v. Brewington , 1992 OK 31, ¶ 5, 829 P.2d 15, 20). ¶25 The 2011 version of Section 24A.8(A) requires law enforcement agencies make enumerated records available for inspection. Defendants urge that, because this provision does not include copying, they are only required to allow Association to inspect the video, which they have yet to do. Were we to consider Section 24A.8(A) out of context, we might agree with Defendants. But we must consider other provisions of the Act as well as the Legislature's intent. ¶26 Sections 24A.5 and 24A.6 of the Act provide that public bodies make their records available for inspection, copying, or mechanical reproduction unless specific exemptions apply. These provisions require public bodies, including Defendants, see 51 O.S.2011, § 24A.3(2), to provide times for the public, not only to inspect its records but, to copy the records. Id. §§ 24A.5, 24A.6. These provisions requiring public bodies to allow copying, as well as inspection, of their records are in direct conflict with Section 24A.8(A) under Defendants' theory that Section 24A.8(A) requires them to allow only inspection. ¶27 Conflicts between statutory provisions will be resolved in favor of a construction which promotes, rather than limits, the Legislature's intent and an act's purpose. See Am. Airlines, Inc. v. State ex rel. Okla. Tax Comm'n , 2014 OK 95, ¶ 33, 341 P.3d 56, 64; Zaloudek Grain Co ., 2012 OK 75, ¶ 7, 298 P.3d at 523. Here as we previously noted, the Act's purpose is to allow the public access to public records. This purpose is furthered, not by restricting access by allowing public bodies to deny copies to the people of Oklahoma, but by requiring public bodies to allow copying. There are times when close inspection cannot be made by being allowed to view a video one time, but requires a copy which can be repeatedly viewed and subjected to scrutiny for a detailed analysis of an incident or to determine things such as a video's authenticity. To reconcile Section 24A.8(A) with Sections 24A.5 and 24A.6, we are compelled to define the public's right to inspect a record as used in Section 24A.8(A) as including their right to obtain a copy of the record. ¶28 The Legislature recognized this ambiguity between Section 24A.8(A) and Sections 24A.5 and 24A.6 when it amended Section 24A.8(A) to specifically include copying. 2014 Okla. Sess. Laws 896-97. This was not the first time the Legislature amended the Act's language to make it conform more closely with its purpose. In Oklahoma City News Broadcaster Association, Inc. v. Nigh , 1984 OK 31, ¶¶ 8, 14, 683 P.2d 72, 74, 76, this Court held that the records of the Governor's Mansion Account were not open to the public because they were not required by law to be kept. The Legislature promptly amended the Act during its next legislative session to allow inspection and copying of all records of public bodies whether or not required by law to be kept. 1985 Okla. Sess. Laws 1643-44. ¶29 Defendants urge that Section 24A.8(A) creates an exemption for law enforcement agencies from Sections 24A.5 and 24A.6. We cannot agree. Section 24A.5, not only requires public bodies to allow copying but, allows a public body to recover the costs of copying a record. If Section 24A.5 does not apply to law enforcement agencies, as Defendants advocate, they would be unable to recover costs pursuant to the Act after the 2014 amendment to Section 24A.8(A) requiring them to allow or provide copies of their records, including videos, since the amendment does not make provisions for law enforcement agencies to recover costs. ¶30 Resolving the ambiguity in favor of the Act's purpose and the Legislature's intent, we find that Title 51, Section 24A.8(A) of the 2011 Oklahoma Statutes must be read to allow copying as well as inspection of records of an arrest, including facts concerning an arrest. To do otherwise would ignore Sections 24A.5 and 24A.6 of the Act. Defendants have not provided how they would be prejudiced by allowing Association a copy of the surveillance video. Further, if this Court were to construe Section 24A.8(A) to disallow Association a copy of the video, Association could merely file another request since the amended version is now effective and clearly requires Defendants to allow Association copies. See 2015 Okla. Sess. Laws 1407-11.