Request By:
Mr. Sid Phillips
Pike County Jailer
Pikeville, Kentucky 41501
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
As jailer of Pike County you have requested an opinion of the Attorney General on the Kentucky Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884. You want to know if you are required under the law to allow inspection of the records which disclose the names of persons who are inmates in the jail. You state that you believe that those records are exempt from the Open Records Law under KRS 61.878(1)(a) which exempts from mandatory public disclosure except upon an order of the court "public records containing information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. "
It is the opinion of the Attorney General that the privacy exemption does not apply to the record containing the names of persons lodged in the jail as inmates. Under the Open Records Law any person is entitled to inspect such records.
It is especially important that jail records be open to public inspection. It is contrary to the principles of personal liberty recognized in this nation for persons to be secretly held in jail. The fact that knowledge of their incarceration may be embarrassing to them or to members of their family is of secondary importance.
In OAG 76-443 we said that police records are open to public inspection because what a police department does is of a public nature. The sovereign is a party to police actions and therefore the public has a right to inspect the records of such actions. The same applies to a jailer. In that opinion we also said:
"What a person does in his own home or on his own piece of property, whether it be large or small, is mainly his private affair, but when he enters on the public ways, breaks the law, or inflicts a tort on his fellow man he forfeits his privacy to a certain extent."
In OAG 80-144 we held that a sheriff's department could not refuse access to records disclosing the identity of victims of crime. In that opinion we said:
"The preamble to House Bill 138, 1976, which enacted the Open Records Law, codified as KRS 61.870-61.884, contains the following:
'Government is the servant of the people and not the master of them; . . . access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every citizen in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.'"
In OAG 78-133 we held that the privacy exemption did not authorize refusing inspection of records disclosing the reason for the demotion of a state policeman. Likewise, in OAG 81-149 we held that the privacy exemption did not apply to the coroner's report. KRS 61.882(4) states that "free and open examination of public records is in the public interest and the exceptions provided for by KRS 61.870-61.884 or otherwise provided by law shall be strictly construed, even though such examination may cause inconvenience or embarrassment to public officials or others."
You state in your letter that when the names of persons who are in jail are published in the newspaper you get complaints from the persons in jail and members of their family because of the embarrassment it causes them. You can respond to such complaints by stating that you have no choice in the matter since your records are open to public inspection by any person, including members of the news media, under the Open Records Law.