In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Lyndhurst opinion, the AOC has issued a directive on how judges must handle lawsuits which seek release of a dashcam video of a fatal police shooting. The directive says that these are common law right to know cases which should be subject to the summary action court rule procedures that apply to OPRA cases.

This is a clear statement from the Judiciary that litigation over fatal police shooting videos should be handled as quickly as possible. Note, however, that the common law, unlike OPRA, does not have a deadline for the agency’s response to the request for disclosure. While a response to a common law request should not be unreasonably delayed, there’s no legal requirement that it be made within OPRA’s 7-business day time frame.