Dep't of Pub. Safety v. Freedom of Info. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 02 November 2010
• Docket Number: No. 18489.,18489.
• Citation: 6 A.3d 763,298 Conn. 703
• Parties: DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

6 A.3d 763

298 Conn. 703

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY

v.FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.

No. 18489.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 18, 2010.

Decided Nov. 2, 2010.

Lynn D. Wittenbrink, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, wasRichard Blumenthal, attorney general, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Kathleen K. Ross, commission counsel, with whom, on the brief, was Colleen M. Murphy, general counsel, for the appellee (named defendant).

Alexander Wood, pro se, the appellee (defendant).

ROGERS, C.J., and NORCOTT, KATZ, PALMER, VERTEFEUILLE, ZARELLA and McLACHLAN, Js.^*

ZARELLA, J.

The principal issue in this appeal is whether the named defendant, the freedom of information commission (commission), properly ordered the plaintiff, the department of public safety (department), to disclose information contained in its sex offender registry because it was not subject to the provisions in General Statutes § 54-255 ¹ restricting the disseminationof registration information regardingcertain offenders.

The department appeals ² from the judgment of the trial court, which upheld the commission's order to disclose information in the sex offender registry relating to forty-one convicted sex offenders, claiming that the court improperly (1) reviewed the commission's decision for abuse of discretion rather than applying plenary review, and (2) interpreted the relevant statutes. The commission and the defendant Alexander Wood,³ a staff writer for the Journal Inquirer, respond that the court properly reviewed the commission's decision for abuse of discretion and interpreted the relevant statutes. We reverse the judgment of the trial court.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of this appeal. On March 19, 2007, Heather Nann Collins, a staff writer for the Journal Inquirer, wrote a letter to the department requesting the "list of the names and addresses of [forty-one] convicted sex offenders, whose names are currently known only to law enforcement personnel under ... [§ ] 54-255" or, alternatively, "the court orders restricting those [forty-one] sex offenders to the non-public sex offender registry, and any public information the [d]epartment has regarding the offenders' convictions."

On March 20, 2007, the department sent a letter to Collins stating that it was reviewing her request. After several more weeks of correspondence in which Collins pressed for the release of the requested information and the department repeatedly advised her that thematter was under review, Collins, Wood and the Journal Inquirer filed a complaint with the commission on May 16, 2007, alleging that thedepartment's failure to provide the information was, in effect, a denial of Collins' request and a violation of the Freedom of Information Act (act), General Statutes § 1-200 et seq.⁴

On May 25, 2007, the department released ninety pages of information that had been partially redacted pursuant to § 54-255 and one page that had been partially redacted pursuant to General Statutes § 17a-101k.⁵ The documents releasedto Collins were copies of the court orders restricting the dissemination of the registration information concerning the forty-one offenders.⁶ On August 30, 2007, the commission held a hearing to consider the complaint. At the hearing, Collins and Wood argued that the department had not provided the information promptly and that the redactions did not comply with § 54-255 because they were over inclusive. The department responded that it initially had believedthat none of the requested information was subject to disclosure. It further explained, however, that it had decided to release the redacted court orders in an attempt to balance its obligations under the act to disclose public records and its obligations under the applicable court orders and relevant statutory provisions to restrict the dissemination of registration information for law enforcement purposes only and to ensure that no information that might be used to identify the offenders or their victims would be made available to the public. See General Statutes § 54-255. After the hearing, and at the hearing officer's request, the department submitted copies of the unredacted documents to the commission for an in camera inspection.

On November 14, 2007, the commission issued a final decision, based on the hearing officer's report, in which it concluded that the term "registration information," as used in § 54-255 and General Statutes § 54-258(a)(4), ⁷ is limited to the information published by the department on its sex offender registry website. This information included the offender's (1) name and alias, (2) address, (3) visible scars, marks or tattoos, (4) race, (5) date of birth, (6) hair and eye color, (7) gender, (8) height and weight, (9) photograph, (10) crimes requiring registration and a description thereof, (11) date of conviction, and (12) state police bureau of identification number. The commission also found that the information that the department claimed to be exempt from disclosure consisted of the (1) name, address, date of birth, and date of conviction of the sex offender, (2) town where the offense occurred, and date of theoffense, (3) docket number of the case, (4) name and location of the court to which the case had been assigned, (5) name of the judge, (6) names of the clerk, assistant clerk, and deputy clerk of the court, (7) names of the prosecuting and defense attorneys, (8) date of the plea, (9) date of the disposition, (10) date of the sentence, (11) name and address of the applicant seeking to restrict dissemination of the registrationinformation, where the applicant also is the registered sex offender, and (12) name and address of the applicant seeking to restrict dissemination of the registration information, where the applicant is not the registered sex offender. The commission concluded that, under the plain and unambiguous language of § 54-255, the only information on the department's list that satisfied the definition of "registration information" and thus was exempt from mandatory disclosure was the offender's name, address, date of birth, date of conviction, and the name and address of the applicant seeking to restrict dissemination of the registration information, where the applicant is the registered sex offender. Accordingly, the commission ordered the department to provide Collins, Wood and the Journal Inquirer with a copy of the requested documents from which this information had been redacted.

On December 31, 2007, the department appealed from the commission's decision to the Superior Court pursuant to General Statutes § 4-183. In a written order dated May 12, 2008, the trial court expressed concern that the department had read the protections of § 54-255 too broadly but that the commission had read them too narrowly, and asked the parties to brief the question of whether the department should be ordered to promulgate a regulation defining the term "registration information."

On May 30, 2008, the commission filed a motion requesting the court to remand the case to the commissionfor clarification in light of a May 29, 2008 letter from Wood stating that he no longer was seeking certain information that the commission previously had ordered to be disclosed. Wood explained that the only information he now was seeking was the (1) name and location of the court to which the case had been assigned, (2) name of the judge, (3) names of the clerk, assistant clerk and deputy clerk, (4) names of the prosecuting and defense attorneys, and (5) name and address of the applicant seeking to restrict dissemination of the registration information, where the applicant was not the registered sex offender. Wood emphasized, with respect to information concerning the applicant, that he was not seeking the identity of the victim or the crime committed by the offender. On July 29, 2008, the court granted the motion and remanded the case to the commission for further consideration, retaining jurisdiction to hear any future appeal.

In a second letter to the commission dated July 31, 2008, Wood added that he was not seeking information as to the dates that appeared in the records. After reconsidering the matter, the commission issued a revised final decision on October 22, 2008, responding to Wood's modified request.⁸ The commission specifically concluded: "With respect to the limited information now at issue in this case ... it is found that such information is administrative information contained in court records, and is not information about the registrant that would identify the registrant to the general public. Moreover, it is found that the [department] failed to prove that the court records at issue are sealed at the court, or are otherwise unavailable for publicinspection, or that the information at issue is not publicly known....

"It is therefore concluded that the informationdescribed in [Wood's letters] ⁹ is not 'registration information' within the meaning of [the relevant statutory provisions]....

"Accordingly, it is concluded that the [department] violated [the act] in redacting the information [in question] ... from the [in camera] records...." The commission ordered the department to provide Collins, Wood and the Journal Inquirer with copies of the in camera documents, redacted in accordance with its decision. The department then appealed from the commission's revised final decision to the trial court.

In its memorandum of decision, the trial court observed that the commission had adopted different approaches in its first and second decisions. "The first decision defined 'registration information' narrowly to include only the data that the registrant is obliged to furnish to the [department] for its registry. Thus, according to the [commission], court orders to restrict disclosure issued pursuant to § 54-255 did not block disclosure of such matters as the date of the offense, the court docket number,...