Court Opinion

ID: 9566351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:37:41.96933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:19.663800
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice EXUM
dissenting.
I agree with the dissenting opinion of Justice Mitchell and join in it. I write separately to say why I think the majority’s reliance on our criminal discovery statutes is misplaced, a point not dealt with in Justice Mitchell’s dissent.
To me, the criminal discovery statutes have nothing to do with the issue in this case. They deal with the narrow subject of what materials a criminal defendant is entitled to see and the procedures which the defendant and the State must follow in making these materials available to the defendant, who is in an adversarial relationship with the State.
The Public Records Act, on the other hand, specifically addresses the issue before us, i.e., the right of the public to have access to certain materials in the hands of public officials. The *599public is not in an adversarial relationship with these officials. Indeed, these officials are, in every sense, the public’s agents. I am confident the legislature did not intend to limit the public’s right to have access to these materials, granted in the Public Records Act, when it later passed statutes addressing the criminal defendant’s right to discover materials in the hands of his adversary.
The fallacy of relying on the criminal discovery statutes to resolve this case is made clearer if one considers how the case would be decided if the criminal discovery statutes had never been passed. As I read the majority opinion, in the absence of our criminal discovery statutes, it would hold that the Public Records Act requires disclosure of the materials at issue in this case. Thus had the criminal discovery statutes not been passed, the majority would hold that the Public Records Act controls in favor of plaintiffs’ position. The criminal discovery statutes, of course, were passed to expand the discovery rights of criminal defendants, which were practically nonexistent at common law. It makes no sense to me to hold that statutes designed to expand the discovery rights of criminal defendants somehow diminish the public’s access to public records under the Public Records Act.
Justice MITCHELL
dissenting.
Under the common law, citizens had limited rights to the disclosure of public documents. News and Observer Publishing Co. v. State, 312 N.C. 276, 280, 322 S.E.2d 133, 136 (1984). However, citizens had no right of access to information possessed by the government concerning alleged violations of criminal law. Id. Although sound and perhaps compelling reasons of public policy supported such common law rules, they no longer control; access to public records is now specifically controlled in this State by the Public Records Act, N.C.G.S. §§ 132-1 to -9. “When the General Assembly as the policy-making agency of our government legislates with respect to the subject matter of any common law rule, the statute supplants the common law and becomes the law of the State.” News and Observer v. State, 312 N.C. at 281, 322 S.E.2d at 137. Thereafter, neither common law principles nor this Court’s public policy preferences control.
As the majority acknowledges, the records sought by the plaintiffs are records of a type included within the term “public records” as that term is defined in N.C.G.S. § 132-1. The General Assembly, *600as the policy-making agency of this State, has specifically and expressly directed by statute that custodians of such public records “shall permit them to be inspected and examined at reasonable times” and “furnish certified copies thereof on payment of fees as prescribed by law.” N.C.G.S. § 132-6 (1991). The issue for this Court to decide, then, is whether any exception to the Public Records Act applies in this case.
In News and Observer v. State, the plaintiffs sought access under the Public Records Act to certain investigative files of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations (SBI). We concluded in that case that the legislature had adopted the Public Records Act in order “to provide that, as a general rule, the public would have liberal access to public records.” News and Observer v. State, 312 N.C. at 281, 322 S.E.2d at 137. We further concluded that the plaintiffs in that case were not entitled to access to SBI records but only because in another statute, N.C.G.S. § 114-15, the General Assembly by the clearest and most specific language possible had provided that SBI records “shall not be considered public records” within the meaning of the Public Records Act. Id. at 281-82, 322 S.E.2d at 137 (quoting N.C.G.S. § 114-15). Similarly, when the General Assembly has decided for “public policy” reasons to except any other records whatsoever from the disclosure requirements of the Public Records Act, it has done so by equally narrow and specific exemptions. E.g., N.C.G.S. § 132-1.1 (1991) (confidential communications by legal counsel to public board or agency); N.C.G.S. § 132-1.2 (1991) (“trade secrets” and other confidential information provided by private parties to government for limited purposes); N.C.G.S. § 132-6 (1991) (proposed expansion or location of specific business or industrial projects in the State). Neither the defendants in this case nor the majority of this Court have identified any such statute specifically excepting records maintained by city police departments from the mandate of the Public Records Act that such records be made available for inspection and copying. This omission is quite understandable; no such statute exists. Therefore, the public’s right of access to the records at issue in the present case is controlled solely by the terms of the Public Records Act as enacted by the General Assembly, rather than by this Court’s view of what constitutes sound public policy. News and Observer v. State, 312 N.C. at 281, 322 S.E.2d at 137.
In defending the holding in the present case, the opinion of the majority advances the quite reasonable public policy concern *601that disclosure of records such as those at issue here could lead in other cases to the disclosure of names of confidential informants, undercover agents, or individuals who have been investigated for crimes but not charged. This Court has previously recognized the validity of such public policy concerns. In fact, in holding that SBI records were not subject to disclosure under the Public Records Act, we expressly stated that we assumed that the General Assembly had considered such valid “reasons for denying access to police records, as well as the common law and statutory history concerning such access, when it enacted the statute declaring S.B.I. records not to be public and, thereby, exempted them from disclosure under the Public Records Act.” Id. at 283, 322 S.E.2d at 138 (emphasis added). In the nine years since we rendered that opinion highlighting the public policy reasons for denying access to police records, however, the General Assembly has not seen fit to adopt a statute exempting records of police departments from the Public Records Act like the specific exemption it enacted for SBI records.
The General Assembly has clearly demonstrated by enacting N.C.G.S. § 114-15 and other statutes that it knows how to create a specific exemption from the requirements of the Public Records Act for police department records if it desires to do so. Until the General Assembly enacts such an exception, however, it is the duty of this Court to apply the Public Records Act as written. Accordingly, we are required to resist all temptations to exceed our legitimate authority by adding public policy exceptions to the Public Records Act which have not been placed there by the General Assembly. News and Observer Publishing Co. v. Poole, 330 N.C. 465, 483-84, 412 S.E.2d 7, 18 (1992); Advance Publications, Inc. v. City of Elizabeth City, 53 N.C. App. 504, 506, 281 S.E.2d 69, 70-71 (1981). If we are to fulfill our duty as judges to apply the Public Records Act as written by the legislature, we are left with no choice in this case but to hold that the defendants must allow the plaintiffs access to the documents they seek.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent from the decision of the majority which denies the plaintiffs access to public records.
Chief Justice Exum and Justice Frye join in this dissenting opinion.