Opinion ID: 1920803
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Claim IV: Public Records Requests

Text: The trial court's denial of Hill's public records requests must also be affirmed. We apply the abuse of discretion standard to such claims. And, as we stated in Parker v. State, 904 So.2d 370, 379 (Fla.2005) (quoting State v. Coney, 845 So.2d 120, 137 (Fla.2003)), [d]iscretion is abused only when the judicial action is arbitrary, fanciful, or unreasonable, which is another way of saying that discretion is abused only where no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the trial court. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Hill's demands for additional records. At the December 19, 2005, hearing, Hill's counsel stated that the agencies from whom he had made appropriate demands for additional public records under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.852(h)(3) had satisfactorily complied. Therefore, the only public record demands at issue in this appeal are nonspecific demands Hill made to three state agencies to produce all information that in any way related to public execution. [6] Hill argues that these requests were necessary to establish similarities between the 2005 study discussed in Claim I and lethal injection as it is carried out in Florida. The trial court denied these requests because Hill had not requested information from these agencies before his death warrant was signed, as is required by Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.852(h)(3), or because these claims were overly broad and unrelated to a colorable claim. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying these requests. After a death warrant has been signed, Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.852(h)(3) authorizes public records requests from agencies who have received public records requests from the defendant at an earlier time. Hill does not contest the trial court's finding that he failed to make a previous public records request from Medical Examiner, District 8; therefore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying this demand for additional information. Moreover, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Hill's other demands on the grounds that they were overly broad. See Moore v. State, 820 So.2d 199, 204 (Fla.2002) (recognizing that a trial court has discretion to review public records requests that are overly broad, of questionable relevance, and unlikely to lead to discoverable evidence). The record supports the trial court's finding. Hill's requests were much broader than necessary to obtain information necessary to correlate the lethal injection study to Florida.