Court Opinion

ID: 9738995
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:07:03.656912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:09.606158
License: Public Domain

DYKMAN, J.
(dissenting). The majority concludes that it will accept the record custodian's assertion as to the contents of the records Morke requests. The majority has no idea what those records contain or whether the custodian's conclusions are correct. Nor does the majority's reason for refusing to follow State ex rel. Youmans v. Owens, 28 Wis. 2d 672, 137 N.W.2d 470 (1965), withstand scrutiny. Youmans requires an in camera inspection to test the custodian's reasons for refusing the demand for information:
The duty of first determining that the harmful effect upon the public interest of permitting inspection outweighs the benefit to be gained by granting inspection rests upon the public officer having custody of the record or document sought to be inspected. If he determines that permitting inspection would result in harm to the public interest which *225outweighs any benefit that would result from granting inspection, it is incumbent upon him to refuse the demand for inspection and state specifically the reasons for this refusal. If the person seeking inspection thereafter institutes court action to compel inspection and the officer depends upon the grounds stated in his refusal, the proper procedure is for the trial judge to examine in camera the record or document sought to be inspected. Upon making such in camera examination, the trial judge should then make his determination of whether or not the harm likely to result to the public interest by permitting the inspection outweighs the benefit to be gained by granting inspection. (Footnote omitted.)
28 Wis. 2d at 682, 137 N.W.2d at 475 (footnote omitted).
The Youmans rule was recently reaffirmed in Fox v. Bock, 149 Wis. 2d 403, 438 N.W.2d 589 (1989). The court said: "However, if there exists a factual dispute, the custodian has the burden of producing evidence and persuading the finder of fact that the proffered facts are true." Fox, 149 Wis. 2d at 417,438 N.W.2d at 595 (citing Hochgurtel v. San Felippo, 78 Wis. 2d 70, 86-87, 253 N.W.2d 526 (1977)). Morke asserts that the custodian's claim that disclosure of the records would threaten prison security is false and that the custodian has misrepresented the records as "sensitive information regarding [an] escape." A factual dispute exists.
I, like the majority, suspect that the records Morke requested could be denied him because they would reveal strategy for crime detection or prevention. Suspicions, however, are not the stuff of which rules of law are usually made. "[P]ublic policy favors the right of inspection and it is only in the exceptional case that inspection should be denied." Hathaway v. Green Bay School Dist., 116 Wis. 2d 388, 396, 342 N.W.2d 682, 686 (1984) *226(emphasis in original). It seems anomalous that, though a right of inspection is strongly protected, a custodian's conclusory assertions as to the contents of the record will be accepted without question. It is not as if an in camera proceeding is a difficult or time consuming process. The custodian could send the records to the circuit court, and it and we could test the custodian's conclusion that sec. 19.35(l)(a), Stats., does not require disclosure of the record.
Because Morke is a prisoner demanding information about guns and hacksaws, the majority's opinion initially seems reasonable. However, Wisconsin's open records law does not differentiate on the basis of the status of the person requesting the records. Had a request for the reports been made by The Capital Times or The Milwaukee Sentinel, the majority's holding would be the same. The challenged assertions of the record custodian would not be confidentially reviewed by the circuit court. The supreme court has warned of the efforts of unreviewed government secrecy: "[I]f the media is denied access to the affairs of government, the public for all practical purposes is denied access as well. A democratic government cannot long survive that burden." State ex rel. Newspapers v. Showers, 135 Wis. 2d 77, 81, 398 N.W.2d 154, 156 (1987).
The majority concludes that it is absurd to suggest that a "hacksaw/gun incident" would not involve a security matter. But if the "incident" were fabricated as evidence that the legislature should provide more financial support for prisons, security would not be implicated, but effective government would be. Requiring a judge to spend a few minutes reviewing secret reports seems a small price to pay to insure that matters that should receive public scrutiny are not totally hidden *227behind a facially reasonable screen of statutory immunity.
Because this opinion is published, and published opinions of the court of appeals have statewide prece-dential effect, sec. 752.41(2), Stats., the conclusion reached by the majority speaks not only to actions by prisoners seeking information about hacksaws and guns in Wisconsin prisons, but also to all requests made to all records custodians. When a school board or police chief denies a newspaper's request for information, the rule the majority adopts today is that a trial court may accept the record custodian's answer without examining the requested information. It makes little sense to me to require a petitioner to prove the contents of unknown but requested documents in order to be entitled to an in camera hearing. I conclude that Youmans and Fox set out the better rule, and I would not overrule those cases.