May 17, 2012

Ms. Tiffany Bull

Assistant City Attorney

Arlington Police Department

Mail Stop 04-0200

P.O. Box 1065

Arlington, Texas 76004-1065

OR2012-07373

Dear Ms. Bull:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 454049 (Police Dept. Ref. No. 7062-030812).

The Arlington Police Department (the "department") received a request for the report related to a specified incident. You claim the submitted information is excepted from disclosure pursuant to section 552.101 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted information.

Section 552.101 of the Government Code excepts from disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." Gov't Code § 552.101. This section encompasses information made confidential by other statutes, such as section 58.007 of the Family Code, which protects the law enforcement records of juveniles. Section 58.007 provides in pertinent part as follows:

(c) Except as provided by Subsection (d), law enforcement records and files concerning a child and information stored, by electronic means or otherwise, concerning the child from which a record or file could be generated may not be disclosed to the public and shall be:

(1) if maintained on paper or microfilm, kept separate from adult files and records;

(2) if maintained electronically in the same computer system as records or files relating to adults, be accessible under controls that are separate and distinct from controls to access electronic data concerning adults; and

(3) maintained on a local basis only and not sent to a central state or federal depository, except as provided by Subchapters B, D, and E.

. . .

(e) Law enforcement records and files concerning a child may be inspected or copied by a juvenile justice agency as that term is defined by Section 58.101, a criminal justice agency as that term is defined by Section 411.082, Government Code, the child, and the child's parent or guardian.

. . .

(j) Before a child or a child's parent or guardian may inspect or copy a record or file concerning the child under Subsection (e), the custodian of the record or file shall redact:

(1) any personally identifiable information about a juvenile suspect, offender, victim, or witness who is not the child[.]

Fam. Code § 58.007(c), (e), (j)(1). For purposes of section 58.007(c), "child" means a person who is ten years of age or older and under seventeen years of age at the time the conduct occurred. See id. § 51.02(2). Juvenile law enforcement records relating to juvenile delinquent conduct that occurred on or after September 1, 1997 are confidential under section 58.007(c). See id. § 51.03(a) (defining "delinquent conduct"). Upon review, we find the submitted information involves children engaged in delinquent conduct that occurred after September 1, 1997. As such, the submitted information is generally confidential under section 58.007(c) of the Family Code. However, the requestor is a parent of one of the juvenile offenders listed in the submitted information. Therefore, the requestor has a right to inspect law enforcement records concerning her child under section 58.007(e). See id. § 58.007(e). However, personally identifiable information concerning other juvenile suspects, offenders, victims, or witnesses must be redacted pursuant to section 58.007(j)(1) of the Family Code. See id. § 58.007(j)(1). For the purposes of section 58.007(j), we conclude a juvenile victim or witness is a person who is under eighteen years of age. Thus, the department must withhold information identifying other juvenile suspects, juvenile victims, and the juvenile witness, which we have marked, under section 552.101 in conjunction with section 58.007(j)(1). The department must release the remaining information to the requestor. ⁽¹⁾

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php, or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General, toll free, at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Burnett

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

JB/dls

Ref: ID# 454049

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. As noted, the requestor has a special right of access to the information being released in this instance. Because such information is confidential with respect to the general public, if the department receives another request for this information from a different requestor, the department must again seek a ruling from this office.

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