New Jersey Supreme Court affirms public right to access records on law enforcement misconduct
By Doris Zhang, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, March 28, 2022
In back-to-back victories for government transparency and accountability, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued unanimous decisions in March ordering the disclosure of records concerning law enforcement misconduct.
In both cases, the state Supreme Court referenced arguments the Reporters Committee made in friend-of-the-court briefs urging the court to make the records public.
The two cases concerned particularly egregious reports of misconduct by law enforcement officers in New Jersey. In the case decided first, Libertarians for Transparent Government v. Cumberland County, the state Supreme Court ordered the release of a settlement agreement reached between Cumberland County and a corrections officer who had been accused of sexually abusing a female detainee, holding that the record was subject to disclosure under the state’s Open Public Records Act. In the second case, Rivera v. Union County Prosecutor’s Office, the court concluded that information from an internal affairs investigation into a police department director’s use of racist and sexist slurs must be released under the common law.
Though the court ruled in favor of disclosing records on different legal bases, both rulings are an important step toward increased transparency in government, especially law enforcement.
“They reaffirm the importance of access to records that shine a light on law enforcement operations and misconduct at this really unique moment in time,” said Reporters Committee Staff Attorney Gunita Singh.
The rulings also set important precedent for other courts in deciding open records cases.
“In dynamic areas of the law like this, courts look at what neighboring jurisdictions are doing,” Singh said. “The fact that the New Jersey Supreme Court has had two decisions one week apart that reaffirm the importance of using public records to foster accountability of law enforcement is really inspiring because other states are absolutely going to look at these cases.”
