Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
This matter having been presented to the Attorney General in an open records appeal, and the Attorney General being sufficiently advised, we find that the Commonwealth's Attorney for the Second Judicial District properly relied on KRS 61.878(1)(h) in denying Larry Lee Hughes' request for records relating to Commonwealth v. Quintarious Lee and Arthur Reed, No. 06-CR-00073 (McCracken Circuit Court). That statute provides, in relevant part:
[R]ecords or information compiled and maintained by county attorneys or Commonwealth's attorneys pertaining to criminal investigations or criminal litigation shall be exempted from the provisions of KRS 61.870 to 61.884 and shall remain exempted after enforcement action, including litigation, is completed or a decision is made to take no action.
It is the decision of this office that 00-ORD-116, a copy of which is attached hereto and incorporated by reference, is dispositive of the issue on appeal. See also,
Skaggs v. Redford, 844 S.W.2d 389 (Ky. 1993) and
Bowling v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, 172 S.W.3d 333 (Ky. 2005). As the Supreme Court observed in Bowling, above at 339, KRS 61.878(1)(h) "appl[ies] equally to all records in the litigation files at the Commonwealth's Attorney, regardless of origin." Accordingly, we find that the Commonwealth's Attorney for the Second Judicial District did not violate the Open Records Act in denying Mr. Hughes' request.
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General should be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.
Distributed to:
Larry Lee Hughes, #157333Tim Kaltenbach