Video records debated

You should go back and watch the oral arguments that took place earlier this month before the Ohio Supreme Court on a challenge to the authority of law enforcement to withhold video footage from unfolding crime scenes.

You’ll find it online at OhioChannel.org, under the Supreme Court section.

The cases pit the Cincinnati Enquirer and other news media against the Ohio Department of Public Safety and the Hamilton County prosecutor and focus on whether police dash- or body-camera videos are exempt from public release.

People like me are going to side with the newspaper – too often, public officials try to prevent release of records, improperly citing one exemption or another. The cost of legal recourse often stifles any subsequent court challenge.

Plenty of other people view withholding of some records as in the public interest. In an age of instant access to videos of incidents of all kinds, they’re probably going to gain more sympathy from everyday people.

In both cases, the Enquirer and other media eventually obtained the footage they sought.

In both cases, the newspaper argued that the videos were equivalent to the initial incident reports, which are supposed to be released promptly.

But in both cases, justices weren’t sympathetic to the newspaper’s position.

“You want everything,” Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor said at one point. “Chances are, you’re not going to get everything.”

THE CASES

In the first case, the newspaper asked for a copy of videos, 9-1-1 audio and reports from a two-county chase that ended with the driver hitting a guardrail and being arrested and charged with multiple felonies.

The State Highway Patrol declined initially to release the video, categorizing it as exempt under the state’s public records laws because it was part of an ongoing investigation.

The patrol eventually did release the video, after the driver pleaded guilty to charges in the incident.

In the second case, the Enquirer and others sued to access video footage recorded by a University of Cincinnati officer who shot and killed a driver he had pulled over.

The footage was not immediately released, with prosecutors arguing it could hurt the officer’s right to a fair trial and because the video was an investigatory record.

The prosecutor released the video to reporters after the officer was indicted, about a week later.

Andy Douglas, a retired Supreme Court justice who represented the prosecutor’s office in the case, said the prosecutor rightly postponed release of the footage, thus preventing the tainting of a jury pool and witnesses and in the interest of public safety.

“We didn’t have the same problems that they had in Ferguson and Baltimore,” he said. “The prosecutor in his mind, and I was there, was concerned about the safety of his community.”

John Greiner, representing the Enquirer, said the cases were not about the timing of the release of the videos. They were about public officials’ classification of the footage as exempt from public release.

“It could have been eight months; it could have been eight years,” he said.

But, again, justices did not voice much support for the newspaper’s position.

“You obtained this video, did you not?” Justice Terrence O’Donnell said. “In eight days, you got it. And why then is the case not moot?”

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.