Court Opinion

ID: 9663284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:34:05.9416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:47.386556
License: Public Domain

LOUIS J. CECI, J.
(dissenting). The prison staff discovered a gun and hacksaw blades in the control of prison inmates. Very properly, the prison officials refused to give prisoner Morke the facts as to how that information was acquired and/or developed. Common sense would dictate that such information not be given out to other prison inmates.
The circuit court and the court of appeals agreed, without an in camera inspection of records, that the requested information should not be provided. Those decisions were predicated upon the state's response to the writ of mandamus, in the form of a motion to quash which was filed on behalf of the records custodian of the department of health and social services. It is obvious that the lower courts did not believe the prisoner had a clear legal right to the information. See Oshkosh Northwestern Co. v. Oshkosh Library Board, 125 Wis. 2d 480, 373 N.W.2d 459 (Ct. App. 1985). I wholeheartedly agree with the determinations made by the circuit court and the court of appeals.
The judiciary should not have to waste valuable resources on this type of case and then require an additional hearing to decide that a prisoner in a maximum-security prison should not be given this information. Where do we stop? Would the majority require an in camera inspection if an inmate demanded a copy of the prison blueprints? I do not believe the legislature could have agreed that the open records statute would be applied to these facts.
It seems to me that the almost overwhelming problems in maintaining a prison system will be further complicated by this decision, and I therefore dissent.
*536I am authorized to state that Justice Donald W. Steinmetz joins in this dissenting opinion.