Appellate Division Rejects Common Law Request For Criminal Investigation Records

In a recent unpublished opinion, the Appellate Division upheld the denial of a request, made under the common law, for all documents pertaining to a criminal investigation. Paff v. NJ State Police.

The court’s decision is unremarkable; it’s based on the well-settled law that the interest in confidentiality of criminal investigations outweighs a requestor’s general interest in getting information about the investigation. What’s interesting about the case is that it confirms what I’ve previously noted–contrary to the press reports hailing the Supreme Court’s Lyndhurst opinion as requiring transparency of police operations, in fact the Supreme Court’s opinion ensures that there will be less public access to most police records.

The Paff court rejected the requestor’s claim that Lyndhurst compelled disclosure of the records in question. Instead, the Appellate Division said, the Supreme Court made clear that typically, the interest in confidentiality of law enforcement investigatory records outweighs the requestor’s interest in disclosure.

I anticipate that Paff is the first of many cases in which courts will rely on Lyndhurst to reject OPRA and common law efforts to obtain law enforcement records.

 

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