 ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS GREG ABBOTT | |
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October 9, 2012 Ms. Michele Tapia Assistant City Attorney City of Carrollton 1945 East Jackson Road Carrollton, Texas 75006 OR2012-16109 Dear Ms. Tapia: 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# 469814. The City of Carrollton (the "city") received a request for a police report regarding a specified incident. You claim that the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.101 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. (1) Section 552.101 of the Government Code excepts from public disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." Gov't Code § 552.101. Section 552.101 encompasses information protected by other statutes. Juvenile law enforcement records relating to conduct that occurred on or after September 1, 1997 are confidential under section 58.007 of the Family Code. The relevant language of section 58.007 reads 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: . . . (2) any information that is excepted from required disclosure under [the Act], or other law. Fam. Code § 58.007(c), (e), (j)(2). For purposes of section 58.007, "child" means a person who is ten years of age or older and under seventeen years of age at the time of the reported conduct. See id. § 51.02(2). Upon review, we agree report number 2010-001084 is a law enforcement record involving a juvenile suspected of delinquent conduct occurring after September 1, 1997. See id. § 51.03(a) (defining "delinquent conduct" for purposes of section 58.007). Thus, the submitted report is subject to section 58.007. However, in this instance, the requestor is the juvenile offender. Therefore, the requestor has a right to inspect his juvenile law enforcement records pursuant to section 58.007(e) of the Family Code. See id. § 58.007(e). Accordingly, the city may not withhold the requested information from this requestor under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with section 58.007(c) of the Family Code. As you raise no additional exceptions to disclosure of the information at issue, it must be released to this requestor. (2) The city asks this office to issue a previous determination permitting the city to withhold law enforcement records concerning children as defined by the Texas Family Code. See Gov't Code § 552.301(a) (allowing governmental body to withhold information subject to previous determination); Open Records Decision No. 673 (2001). We decline to issue such a previous determination at this time. Accordingly, 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, Thana Hussaini Assistant Attorney General Open Records Division TH/sdk Ref: ID# 469814 Enc. Submitted documents c: Requestor (w/o enclosures) Footnotes1. We assume that the "representative sample" of records submitted to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision Nos. 499 (1988), 497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding of, any other requested records to the extent that those records contain substantially different types of information than that submitted to this office. 2. As noted, the requestor in this instance has a special right of access under section 58.007(e) to the information being released. Accordingly, if the city should receive another request for this information from a different requestor, the city must again request an opinion from this office.
POST OFFICE BOX 12548, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711-2548 TEL: (512) 463-2100 WEB: WWW.OAG.STATE.TX.US |