Request By:
Mr. James D. Hager
District Supervisor
Department of Community Services &
Facilities
Corrections Cabinet
400 Legal Arts Building
200 South 7th Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
Keith Phillips has appealed to the Attorney General pursuant to KRS 61.880 your denial of his request to inspect and copy various documents in the custody of your office and the Corrections Cabinet.
This office has not been furnished with a copy of Keith Phillips' letter of request to you. He evidently sent you a letter in the latter part of January 1988, requesting permission to inspect documents contained in his parole file, particularly documents prepared by his parole officer, Mr. Douglas Garrett.
You replied to Keith Phillips in a letter dated January 29, 1988. Except for furnishing him a copy of the "Results of Preliminary Hearing" you denied his request. In support of your decision you cited KRS 439.510 dealing with the privileged nature of information obtained by a probation or parole officer.
In his letter of appeal Keith Phillips concludes by requesting that he be permitted to have copies of reports Mr. Garrett submitted to the Parole Board, pertaining to charges in Jefferson Circuit Court against him, as well as other materials in the file maintained by the Corrections Cabinet concerning him.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Among the public record which can be excluded from public inspection in the absence of a court order authorizing inspection are those documents described in KRS 61.878(1)(j) as, "Public records or information the disclosure of which is prohibited or restricted or otherwise made confidential by enactment of the General Assembly."
KRS 439.510 is an enactment of the Kentucky General Assembly and it provides as follows:
All information obtained in the discharge of official duty by any probation or parole officer shall be privileged and shall not be received as evidence in any court. Such information shall not be disclosed directly or indirectly to any person other than the court, board, cabinet or others entitled under KRS 439.250 to 439.560 to receive such information, unless otherwise ordered by such court, board or cabinet.
In OAG 88-6, copy enclosed, this office concluded that the requesting party, Keith Phillips, was entitled to receive from the Corrections Cabinet a timely and written response to his request setting forth the records withheld and the particular statutory exception relied upon to support the withholding of those records.
The Corrections Cabinet, as indicated by your letter of January 29, 1988, to Keith Phillips, has responded pursuant to the statutory requirements set forth in the Open Records Act. The records requested involve documents prepared and submitted by the requesting party's parole officer and such material is specifically excluded from public inspection by an enactment of the General Assembly.
Thus it is the opinion of the Attorney General that the Corrections Cabinet, Department of Community Services and Facilities, properly denied, pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(j) and KRS 439.510, the request to inspect documents prepared and submitted by a parole officer.
As required by statute a copy of this opinion is being sent to the requesting party, Keith Phillips, who has the right to challenge it in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882 .