Court Opinion

ID: 9850350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:55:53.794165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:35.741534
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, J.
(dissenting). A police officer’s grounds for arrest, consisting of his conclusions as to probable cause, are not always confirmed by the formal charges filed. An arrest for contributing to the delinquency of a minor resulted in a murder charge in State v. Babich, 258 Wis. 290, 45 N.W.2d 660 (1950). More recently, a probation violation hold was the ground for detention until a murder charge was lodged in Wagner v. State, 89 Wis.2d 70, 277 N.W.2d 849 (1979). A felony ground for arrest often results in a prosecution for a misdemeanor. In the latter case, does the individual arrested have a protectable interest in his reputation? Chief Breier thinks he does, and I agree. In the City of Milwaukee, as the majority recognizes, there are a number of arrests made for which no formal charges ever issue.
I have no wish to inhibit the press in the discharge of its duty to provide information to the public. However, the tension which exists between the public’s right to know and the individual’s interest in reputation requires a balancing of the competing interests. The Chief struck the balance in this case by denying access to the daily arrest lists until such time as formal charges were issued. I think his judgment is proper. What public policy supports trampling on an individual’s right of privacy and making public a family argument wherein an arrest has been made solely for the protection of the parties? Why invade an individual’s privacy by disclosing an arrest which terminates, not in criminal charges, but in a private civil mental commitment proceeding for the *442protection of the patient. Why must we force a husband or wife, mother or father, sister or brother to relive the incident with each and every explanation that must be made to those informed by a newspaper account? Must the patient carry this stigma of temporary mental illness throughout life ?
The majority holds that our new right of privacy statute, Wis. Stats., sec. 895.50, furnishes no protection to a person arrested, even though the grounds for arrest are never proven because no prosecution on those grounds is attempted. This holding protects the police department and the newspaper from an invasion of privacy suit. But the damage to the person arrested through disclosure and publication is irreparable. If any balancing were to be done between the reputational interest of the individual and the newspaper’s right to have this piece of gossip gift wrapped for publication, there is no doubt that the scales of justice would weigh heavily on the side of the individual.
The legislature has given us a mandate to develop a common law of privacy. Wis. Stats., sec. 895.50(8). The majority refuses to do so by making an overbroad interpretation of the “matter of public record” exception in sec. 895.50(2) (c). Before this case, there was a clear distinction between public records and matters contained in public documents. In State ex rel. Youmans v. Owens, 28 Wis.2d 672, 137 N.W.2d 470, 139 N.W.2d 241 (1965) the court said:
“There are many statutes that impose upon particular public officers the duty to keep certain records which evidence an express or implied legislative intent that such records be open to public inspection. With respect to public records of this category . . . the officer custodian thereof would have no right to refuse public inspection.” Id. at 685a.
Thus, matters of public record are those where the legislature has imposed a duty to compile the record. In *443all other cases, the common law requirement of a balancing of interests as a condition precedent to disclosure of the matters in public documents is continued.
The distinction between public records and matters contained in public documents, heretofore so clearly made, is now obliterated on the reasoning that anything contained in a public document is a matter of public record. This is an expansion of the legislative intent underlying the public .documents statute determined in our prior decisions. Wis. Stats., sec. 19.21(1) recites:
“19.21 Custody and delivery of official property and records. (1) Each and every officer of the state, or of any county, town, city, village, school district, or other municipality or district, is the legal custodian of and shall safely keep and preserve all property and things, received from his predecessor or other persons and required by law to be filed, deposited, or kept in his office, or which are in the lawful possession or control of himself or his deputies, or to the possession or control of which he or they may be lawfully entitled, as such officers.
The statute as written and as previously interpreted by this court, does not contemplate the majority’s holding that any public document kept as a means of more efficiently discharging the duties of office is a public record subject to public release. It is presumptuous for this court, which does not and cannot have the benefit of public hearings and constituent expression of opinion, to decide this matter of vital importance. It is and should be up to the legislature to say when an office record is a public document.
I would reverse the judgment appealed from and remand the same with directions to dismiss the action.