Opinion ID: 891791
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Executive Privilege in Other States

Text: {29} States that recognize a gubernatorial version of executive privilege have premised that privilege on an analogy between the relationship of a governor to his or her state, and that of the President to the United States. See Hamilton v. Verdow, 414 A.2d 914, 921 (Md. 1980) (“Our cases have recognized . . . that the Governor bears the same relation to this State as does the President to the United States, and that generally the Governor is entitled 12 to the same privileges and exemptions in the discharge of his duties as is the President.”). Consequently, the few state high courts that have considered the issue explicitly have concluded that governors enjoy an executive communications privilege analogous to the federally recognized presidential communications privilege. See, e.g., Nero v. Hyland, 386 A.2d 846, 853 (N.J. 1978). For example, over a strong dissent, the Ohio Supreme Court held that the governor may assert a qualified executive communications privilege (which that court denominated as a “gubernatorial-communications privilege.”). State ex rel. Dann v. Taft, 848 N.E.2d 472 (Ohio 2006). The court determined that the governor has a qualified gubernatorial-communications privilege that protects communications to or from the governor when the communications were made for the purpose of fostering informed and sound gubernatorial deliberations, policymaking, and decisionmaking. This qualified gubernatorial-communications privilege is overcome when a requester demonstrates that the requester has a particularized need to review the communications and that that need outweighs the public’s interest in according confidentiality to communications made to or from the governor. Id. at 485. A dissent from the majority opinion argued that the recognition of the executive communications privilege was contrary to the policy of openness of the Ohio government. Id. at 490 (Pfeifer, J., dissenting). That dissenting opinion also disputed the conclusion that a governor should be entitled to the same privileges as the President, nothing that “though [the President’s and a governor’s] roles may be analogous, their duties and responsibilities are far from equal,” and urging that “[t]he scale of the privilege should reflect the difference in scale between the offices.” Id. at 491. {30} Although only a relative handful of state courts have ruled on the existence of an executive communications privilege, a greater number have addressed the applicability of a deliberative process privilege. Some states, parallel to the deliberative process privilege created by the federal courts, recognize a privilege available not only to the governor, but also to executive agencies responding to public records requests. See, e.g., Gwich’in Steering Comm. v. Office of the Governor, 10 P.3d 572, 578-79 (Alaska 2000); City of Colorado Springs v. White, 967 P.2d 1042, 1049-50 (Colo. 1998) (en banc); DR Partners v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs of Clark Cnty., 6 P.3d 465, 469-70 (Nev. 2000); In re Liquidation of Integrity Ins. Co., 754 A.2d 1177, 1182 (N.J. 2000); Commonwealth v. Vartan, 733 A.2d 1258, 1263-64 (Pa. 1999); Herald Ass’n, Inc. v. Dean, 816 A.2d 469, 474-75 (Vt. 2002). In a few instances, state public records statutes track Exemption 5 of FOIA and expressly exempt from disclosure agency-generated documents reflecting policy deliberations. See, e.g., City of Garland v. Dallas Morning News, 22 S.W.3d 351, 360 (Tex. 2000) (citing Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 552.111 (West 1993)). More typically, state high courts recognize a deliberative process privilege based purely on common law principles. See, e.g., City of Colorado Springs, 967 P.2d 1042, 1049-51 (distinguishing the deliberative process privilege’s common law origin from the executive communications privilege’s constitutional basis); see also Gwich’in Steering Comm., 10 P.3d at 578 (noting that the deliberative 13 process privilege is not grounded in “constitutional notions of separation of powers”). {31} Other states have considered and rejected a common law deliberative process privilege. See, e.g., Rigel Corp. v. Arizona, 234 P.3d 633, 640-41 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2010); People ex rel. Birkett v. City of Chicago, 705 N.E.2d 48, 53 (Ill. 1998); News & Observer Publ’g Co. v. Poole, 412 S.E.2d 7, 20 (N.C. 1992) (“We refuse to engraft upon our Public Records Act exceptions based on common-law privileges, such as a ‘deliberative process privilege,’ to protect items otherwise subject to disclosure.”); Sands v. Whitnall Sch. Dist., 754 N.W.2d 439, 458 (Wis. 2008) (“Wisconsin does not recognize a deliberative process privilege. [State statute] precludes the extension of common law privileges by the court on a case-by-case basis, but rather requires common law privileges not originating in the constitution to be adopted by statute or court rule.”); see also Freudenthal v. Cheyenne Newspapers, Inc., 233 P.3d 933, 942 (Wyo. 2010) (declining to rule on whether Wyoming’s public records law incorporates the deliberative process privilege). {32} One state, Massachusetts, does not recognize any form of executive privilege. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that neither constitutional nor common law executive privilege could be invoked to shield documents from production in a civil action. Babets v. Sec. of the Exec. Office of Human Servs., 526 N.E.2d 1261, 1264 (Mass. 1988). The court in Babets concluded that the doctrine of separation of powers did not compel recognition of an executive privilege, as “[w]hat [the] doctrine interdicts is the interference by one branch of government with the power or functions of another,” and the decision not to recognize an executive privilege “does not constitute the exercise of nonjudicial power or interfere with the Executive’s power.” Id. at 1263. The court then refused to create a common law executive privilege, noting that privileges in Massachusetts are normally conferred by the legislature. Id. at 1264-65. The court rejected the executive’s argument that the privilege was necessary to promote “candid and unconstrained communication and exchange of ideas between and among executive policymakers and their advisors . . . in light of the long history of the Commonwealth and the lack of any showing of real harm that has accrued from the absence of the privilege.” Id. at 1266.