Facts and Procedural History:

On November 10, 1994, PIPA received a letter from Mr. Mark R. Anfinson, the attorney for the West Central Tribune newspaper located in Willmar, Minnesota. In his letter, Mr. Anfinson described attempts by reporters working for his client to gain access to certain law enforcement data maintained by the City of Willmar, hereinafter City. A summary of what Mr. Anfinson related is as follows.

On November 5, 1994, there was an altercation among several juveniles in Willmar One juvenile was critically wounded. Shortly thereafter a juvenile suspect was taken into custody by Willmar police. On November 6, 1994, a Tribune reporter asked for the name and age of the suspect being detained. The City refused to provide the data. Subsequently, the juvenile was charged with two separate crimes, both of which are felonies.

Mr. Anfinson explained that the Tribune has encountered a number of difficulties in getting access to data on juveniles from the City's police department. These difficulties include getting access to incident complaint reports (ICR's), when the incident being documented involves a juvenile. He then asked the Commissioner to issue an opinion on the issues described in the Issues section below.

In response to his request, PIPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Mr. Michael Schmit, the City's administrator. The purposes of this letter, dated November 10, 1994, were to inform Mr. Schmit of Mr. Anfinson's request, to provide a copy of the request to him, to ask Mr. Schmit to provide information or support for the City's position and to inform him of the date by which the Commissioner was required to issue this opinion.

No response was received from the City.

Issue:

Discussion:

Minnesota Statutes Section 13.82, subdivision 3 states that certain data created or collected by law enforcement agencies that document requests for law enforcement services are always public data. This includes items of data such as the nature of the request or activity complained of, the names and addresses of individuals who request police services, the time and date of the request or complaint and the response initiated and the response or incident report number. In certain specified circumstances, the identity of an individual requesting services is treated as not public data. These data are referred to as request for service data.

Minnesota Statutes Section 13.82, subdivision 4 states that certain data created or collected by law enforcement agencies that document an agency's response to requests for service or that describe actions taken by an agency on its own initiative are also public data. The data identified in this section as being public are a much longer list of data elements than the list of request for service data. Included in this list are items of data such as date, time and place of the law enforcement action, a brief factual reconstruction of events, names and addresses of witnesses and victims and a number of other items. This subdivision also provides means by which the identities of certain individuals may be protected. The data made public by this section are referred to as response or incident data.

Lastly, Section 13.82, subdivision 2, acknowledges in some situations that law enforcement actions involve the arrest of individuals. This subdivision lists a number of elements of data associated with an arrest that are public data. Included in this list are items of data such as time, date and place of the arrest, identities of agencies and individual persons taking the arrest action and the name, age, sex and last known address of an adult person cited, arrested, incarcerated or otherwise substantially deprived of liberty. In the case of juvenile persons, their names and last known addresses do not appear on the list of data that are public but the age and sex of juveniles who are cited, arrested, incarcerated or otherwise substantially deprived of liberty are public data. The data made public by this section are referred to as arrest data.

Request for service data, response or incident data and arrest data are public data for purposes of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13 and hereinafter Chapter 13 or Act. (See Minnesota Statutes Section 13.82, subdivisions 2 through 4.) In enacting these subdivisions, the legislature has carefully and specifically described what data maintained by law enforcement agencies that document certain activities conducted by those agencies must be made available to the public. In these subdivisions, the legislature protects data on juveniles who may be engaged in delinquent or other unlawful behavior by specifying, in the arrest data subdivision, that only the age and sex of a juvenile offender taken into custody are required to be made public. All of the other data elements specified in these subdivisions either do not by their nature identify juveniles or if the data are about juveniles who are victims or witnesses are to be treated the same as data on adult victims or witnesses. (See Minnesota Statutes Sections 13.82, subdivision 10 and 260.161, subdivision 3.)

In determining the classification of data on juvenile offenders, the provisions of Minnesota Statutes Section 13.82, must be read in conjunction with Minnesota Statutes Section 260.161. Minnesota Statutes Section 260.161 classifies and regulates data about juveniles held by the court system and by law enforcement agencies. Subdivision 3 of Section 260.161 specifies, subject to certain exceptions, that law enforcement records on children, who are or may be delinquent or who may be engaged in criminal acts, are private data. Most of the exceptions deal with authority for juvenile records to be disseminated to various persons or agencies. In two instances, law enforcement data about juveniles can be disseminated to the public.

First, Section 260.161, subdivision 3 authorizes dissemination of law enforcement data pursuant to Section 13.82, subdivision 2. This is a cross reference to the arrest data section and it authorizes release to the public of the age and sex of juveniles taken into custody. This subdivision also states that law enforcement data relating to offenses by juveniles, in instances where the court proceedings involving a juvenile are public under Minnesota Statutes Section 260.155, subdivision 1, are not private data. The clear implication of that language is that those records are to be treated the same as records on adult individuals.

Section 260.155, subdivision 1 states that courts that hear juvenile matters are required to exclude the general public from those hearings. However, this subdivision also says that courts are required to open delinquency proceedings to the public when the child who is the subject of the proceeding is alleged to have committed an offense or has been proven to have committed an offense that would be a felony if committed by an adult and the child was at least 16 years of age at the time of the offense. This policy is sometimes called the sixteen year old felon rule. When read together, Sections 260.161, subdivision 3 and 260.155, subdivision 1, state a policy that law enforcement data on juveniles, who are subject to the 16 year old felon rule, are to be treated the same as data on adults for purposes of Section 13.82 of the Act.

With that background, an analysis of the issues raised by Mr. Anfinson establishes the following. If a court, that is adjudicating a juvenile under the 16 year old felon rule, has opened its proceedings to the public, then the juvenile's name, age, sex and last known address are public data under Minnesota Statutes Section 13.82, subdivision 2. If the court in the specific instance described by Mr. Anfinson has opened proceedings to the public, then the City should be providing this public data to the public. However, if the juvenile has been taken into custody and there has not yet been a decision by the court, under Minnesota Statutes Section 260.155, subdivision 1, to open delinquency proceedings concerning that juvenile to the public, the City must continue to treat the data on the juvenile, with the exception of the age and sex, as private data.

In its provisions dealing with public access to data, the general rule of Chapter 13 is to give the public the right to gain access to the actual physical public government data being maintained by government agencies. (See Minnesota Statutes Section 13.03, subdivisions 1 through 3.) This rule would normally apply to data contained on, what Mr. Anfinson, refers to as, incident complaint reports to the extent that those reports contain data made public by Minnesota Statutes Section 13.82. However, when the legislature first enacted Section 13.82, it included, in the overall scheme of the operation of Section 13.82, a possible exception to the rule that the public can always gain physical access to public government data. Section 13.82, subdivision 9, states that, in an instance where it is not administratively feasible for a law enforcement agency to separate public data from confidential data, it is permissible for the law enforcement agency to not provide physical access to the data but to make the information described as public data available to the public in some other reasonable manner.

It is not clear from the information provided by Mr. Anfinson if the reports his client seeks access to contain both public and confidential data. If they do, and, if it is not administratively feasible for the City to separate the data, then providing an oral report of the public data contained in the reports would be permissible under Section 13.82, subdivision 9. However, if these reports do not contain confidential data, or, if it is administratively feasible to separate public from confidential data, the City should be providing Mr. Anfinson's client with access to the actual reports or to copies of those reports in which the confidential data has been blacked out or otherwise removed.

Opinion: