Request By:
Ms. Elizabeth Stuart
Offender Records Specialist
Kentucky State Penitentiary
Eddyville, Kentucky 42038-0128
Opinion
Opinion By: CHRIS GORMAN, ATTORNEY GENERAL; Amye B. Majors, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Mark Anthony Price, an inmate at Kentucky State Penitentiary, has appealed to the Attorney General, pursuant to KRS 61.880(2), your response to his November 7, 1991, request to inspect certain records in your custody. Those records are identified as "the non-confidential part of [his] inst[itutional] record."
You responded to Mr. Price's request on November 7, advising him:
You must be more specific in order for this office to appropriately determine if such a request is within the guidelines of Open Records law. You must request actual specific records, detailing dates, sections etc. (For example: you may request to view your incident reports from a specific date to a specific date) .
Mr. Price renewed his request on November 12, 1991, indicating once again that he wished to review "all non-confidential sections of [his] institutional record." Mr. Price noted that it was his understanding that his record consisted of two parts, one confidential and one nonconfidential, and that he had been advised that he was entitled to inspect the nonconfidential portion of his record. He states that he did not recieve a response to his November 12 request.
On November 18, 1991, Mr. Price submitted yet another request for access to "all enclosures of [his] 'institutional record,' excluding psychological reports and conflict report sheets." You responded to his third request on November 22. Relying on KRS 61.872(2), which authorizes the official custodian of records to require written application describing the records to be inspected, you denied the request. Elaborating on this position, you explained:
Again, specific records and dates are required for this office to appropriately determine if such a request is within the Open Records Law. (OAG 85-88) You may resubmit your request detailing specific information contained in the inmate file.
A brief analysis of OAG 85-88 was apparently attached to your denial. That document provided, in part:
General counsel has advised this office that inmates will no longer be allowed to review their institutional record in its entirety. Specific records and dates are required for this office to appropriately determine if such a request is within the guidelines of the Open Records law. Therefore, based on this clarification your recent request to review your file in its entirety is being denied.
Mr. Price was again advised that he should resubmit his request, "detailing specific information" which he wished to inspect.
In his letter of appeal to this Office, Mr. Price cites OAG 86-51, OAG 86-52, OAG 83-36, and OAG 76-384. It is his position that you have "misapplied or misinterpreted the exceptions to public inspection of records." In particular, he maintains that your failure to permit him to inspect the nonexempt portion of his institutional file constitutes a subversion of the Open Records Act. He asks that we review your response to his requests to determine if you acted consistently with the Act. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that you properly advised Mr. Price that he must identify specific documents which he wishes to inspect.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
This Office has previously recognized that although the purpose and intent of the Open Records Act is to permit the "free and open examination of public records . . .," this right of access is not absolute. KRS 61.882(4). As a precondition to inspection, a requesting party must identify with "reasonable particularity" those documents which he wishes to review. OAG 89-81; OAG 91-58. Thus, in a series of opinions, we have held that "[b]lanket requests for information on a particular subject without specifying certain documents need not be honored." OAG 76-375; OAG 83-386; OAG 85-88; OAG 89-8; OAG 89-61; OAG 91-58. Elaborating on this position, in OAG 89-8, at p. 2, we observed:
The Open Records Act provides in part in KRS 61.872(1) that all public records, with certain exceptions, shall be open for public inspection. While persons will obviously acquire information from these records, the primary purpose of the Act is making records available for public inspection. The Act does not require a public agency to provide information beyond that which is made available from permitting access to the public documents. Thus, if the agency is to provide access to public documents the person seeking to inspect those documents must identify them with sufficient clarity to enable the public agency to locate and make them available.
If a requester cannot describe the documents he wishes to inspect with sufficient specificity there is no requirement that the public agency conduct a search for such material. OAG 84-342; OAG 89-8.
In OAG 85-88, this Office expressly recognized that the failure of an inmate to identify specific documents in his institutional file precluded release of the documents in the file. Citing OAG 79-547, we emphasized that the purpose of the Open Records Act is not to provide information but to provide access to public records which are not exempt by law. OAG 85-88, at p. 2. At p. 3 of that opinion, we analogized an inmate's institutional file to a personnel file, insofar as both contain exempt and nonexempt documents, holding that a request to inspect an institutional file, like a request to inspect personnel files, "must specify the particular documents within such file to be inspected. "
While there can be little doubt that a requesting party must be afforded the opportunity to inspect nonexempt documents, we do not believe that the opinions cited by Mr. Price, which stand for this proposition, are dispositive of this appeal. Mr. Price has, in effect, "put the horse before the cart," in asserting that he must be afforded access to nonconfidential documents before he identifies those documents. Accordingly, it is the opinion of this Office that you properly advised Mr. Price that he must identify the specific documents that he wishes to inspect.
As required by statute, a copy of this opinion will be sent to the requesting party, Mr. Mark Anthony Price. Mr. Price may challenge it by initiating an action for injunctive or declaratory relief in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5).