Court Opinion

ID: 9706424
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:43:20.779054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:22.649104
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). The opinion correctly concludes that the records at issue in this case were not exempt from disclosure under Wisconsin's open records law, and I therefore join the mandate. I write separately because the very reasons the opinion relies upon to reach its result warrant overturning the court's prior decision in State ex rel. Richards v. Foust, 165 Wis. 2d 429, 477 N.W.2d 608 (1991).
In concluding that a prosecutor cannot shield otherwise disclosable documents merely by placing them in a prosecutorial file, the opinion correctly observes that" [i] t is the nature of the documents and not their location" which determines whether they should be disclosed. "To conclude otherwise," the opinion continues, *277"would elevate form over substance." Majority op. at 275.
Conversely, in concluding that prosecutorial files should automatically and categorically be exempt from Wisconsin's open records law, regardless of whether the files pertain to open or closed investigations, the Foust court did precisely what we rightly condemn today: it elevated form over substance, thereby thwarting the presumption inscribed in Wisconsin's open records law in favor "of complete public access" "in every instance." Wis. Stat. § 19.31 (1991-92).1
That presumption requires a careful balancing between the public interest in disclosure of the contested information and the potential harmful effect of such disclosure.2 In conducting that balancing test, "[t]he denial of public access generally is contrary to the public interest, and only in an exceptional case may access be denied." Wis. Stat. § 19.31. In holding that a prosecutor's closed case files were exempt from public inspection, the Foust court failed to heed this statutory prescription.3
*278In its effort to both salvage Foust and adhere to the open records statute, the court's opinion today circumvents the Foust court's blanket exemption for records placed in prosecutorial files by insisting that neither the purposes served by the open records law nor the policies enunciated in Foust itself warrant exempting the documents at issue in this case from open records requests.
While the majority insists that the exception it creates to Foust "should not be read as questioning or weakening" Foust, majority op. at 275 n.4, it is difficult to comprehend how else one might read the opinion. The opinion limits Foust to "documents integral to the criminal investigation and prosecution process." Majority op. at 275 n.4. This standard is nebulous and it sets the stage for future litigation as surely as Foust rendered inevitable the case before us today. The exception to Foust which the majority opinion carves out is only the first; it will not be the last.4
Without any authority or support in either the statutes or the common law, Foust unilaterally prohibits the full application of Wisconsin's open records law. Because of the irreconcilable tension between the Foust *279court's holding and the statute it purports to interpret and apply, the majority opinion can only grapple with Foust's troubled legacy by denying what that legacy means. Such contortions do not make good law. Hence rather than destroying Foust covertly in an effort to save it, we should avail ourselves today of the opportunity to overtly overturn it.
For the reasons set forth, I concur.

 All future references are to the 1991-92 volume of the Wisconsin Statutes.

 Wis. Stat. § 19.31; Fox v. Bock, 149 Wis. 2d 403, 411, 438 N.W.2d 589 (1989); Hathaway v. Green Bay Sch. Dist., 116 Wis. 2d 388, 396-97, 342 N.W.2d 682 (1984); Newspapers, Inc. v. Breier, 89 Wis. 2d 417, 426-27, 279 N.W.2d 179 (1979); State ex rel. Youmans v. Owens, 28 Wis. 2d 672, 682-83, 137 N.W.2d 470, 139 N.W.2d 241 (1965).

 The open records law insures that when closed prosecutorial files contain materials which, were they disclosed, would harmfully affect the public interest, the district attorney need not release them. See State ex rel. Richards v. Foust, 165 Wis. 2d 429, 439, 477 N.W.2d 608 (1991) (Abrahamson, J., dissenting).

 The Foust court stated that under the court's interpretation of the common-law exception to disclosure, a prosecutor need not even respond to an open records law request for access to information in a prosecutorial file. This further illustrates the tension between Foust and the open records act. Foust, 165 Wis. 2d at 437. Because the prosecutor in this case did respond to the request for information, this issue was not before us. Should he have declined to do so, the court could have been compelled to carve out yet another exception to Foust, since replying to such a request presumably does not jeopardize and is not "integral to the criminal investigation and prosecution process."