Houston Chronicle Pub. Co. v. City of Houston
| Decision Date | 28 April 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. B--5773,B--5773 |
| Citation | 536 S.W.2d 559 |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
| Parties | HOUSTON CHRONICLE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Petitioner, v. CITY OF HOUSTON et al., Respondents. |
Liddell, Sapp, Zivley & Brown, W. Robert Brown, Robert J. King and Charles H. Waters, Jr., Houston, for petitioner.
Jonathan S. Day, City Atty., Houston, John L. Hill, Atty. Gen., David Kendall, Jr., First Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, for respondents.
ON APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF ERROR
The Houston Chronicle filed this action seeking an interpretation of the Texas Open Records Act, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6252--17a (supp.1975). The trial court held that sections 3(a)(1), 3(a)(8), 6(1), 6(15), and 14(a) of the Act were unconstitutional and held that the Act does not provide a lawful basis for the withholding of police records. The court of civil appeals reversed the trial court's holdings that the stated provisions were unconstitutional, but also ordered the disclosure of certain kinds of records. 531 S.W.2d 177. The Houston Chronicle has filed an application for writ of error, insisting that all of the police records must be disclosed. The City of Houston and the other defendants have not complained of the judgment of the court of civil appeals.
There are three different kinds of police records in controversy: Offense Reports, Personal History and Individual Arrest Records, and administrative records. Offense Reports compile information concerning a specific crime. The information sometimes includes the names and description of any suspects, names of persons arrested for this particular crime, name and description of the complainant, place of the crime, names of witnesses, a detailed description of the offense, the police officer's evaluation of the witnesses or suspect, synopsis of confessions and police laboratory reports. Personal History and Individual Arrest Records contain information on particular persons suspected of crimes. They contain the suspect's name and personal data including a mug shot, marital status and names of relatives. The primary purpose of the Personal History and Individual Arrest Record is to list chronologically all of the offenses for which the person has ever been arrested; however, the final disposition of the charge is not always noted. The third kind of record, broadly categorized as administrative records, consists of three kinds of documents, Arrest Sheets, Show-Up Sheets, and the Blotter. In general, these three records include such information as the...
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