Public disclosure of police disciplinary records in New Jersey

By John Paff (paff@pobox.com)

October 25, 2007

INTRODUCTION

Municipalities zealously protect their police departments’ disciplinary files from public disclosure. If asked, most municipal governments will disclose nothing more than an “Internal Affairs Summary Report Form” that discloses only numerical data such as “number of cases received this year,” “number of disciplinary actions sustained,” etc. An example of this form is at page 44 of a large PDF file that can be found here

If asked, however, for records that identify the particular police officers who were disciplined and the nature of the misconduct that caused discipline to be imposed, most municipal agencies will totally deny access.

Keeping police disciplinary records completely secret is not good public policy. Police officers are given a great deal of authority and are the only class of people in New Jersey who are allowed to carry firearms. The public would be best served if police disciplinary files were open--or at least more open than they presently are.

A POLICE OFFICER, BY ELECTING WHETHER OR NOT TO APPEAL THE DISCIPLINE IMPOSED, DETERMINES WHETHER OR NOT THE MATTER WILL BE PUBLIC.

If a police officer appeals a disciplinary determination to the Merit System Board (in municipalities that have adopted Civil Service) or to the Superior Court (in municipalities that have not), the records filed with the Board or the Superior Court are public and will probably identify the officer and reveal the nature of the charged misconduct.

For a fascinating look at a police disciplinary matter involving Passaic City Police Officer James Joyce, see the PDF file here. This file is public only because Officer Joyce appealed his 60-day suspension to the Merit System Board. Had he not appealed it is very doubtful that I would have ever learned of it. As you can see, Officer Joyce was found to have created a early-morning disturbance at the VooDoo Lounge in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Despite having allegedly made comments such as “I’m a Passaic cop. I’ll do whatever the f___ I want.” to the Lyndhurst police, Joyce was neither arrested nor charged with any offense. While I cannot be sure, I believe that most non-police officers who directed the “F word” at a police officer would have suffered more serious consequences.

A CRACK IN THE BLUE SHIELD OF SECRECY?

In January 2007, my colleague Martin O’Shea learned that West Milford Township, Passaic County, had authorized funds to pay a hearing officer to act on a “confidential personnel matter.” After making some Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests, O’Shea found that the “confidential personnel matter” was a disciplinary matter against West Milford Police Caption David Hardin. After more requests filed under both OPRA and the common law, he received very heavily redacted documents that set forth the disciplinary charges against Hardin. Those six pages of redacted records constitute pages 15 through 20 of the PDF file that can be found here. So much information was redacted from the records that it was impossible to learn even the general nature of the charges levied against Captain Hardin.

O’Shea next sent a request for unredacted, or at least more narrowly redacted, versions of the same six pages of records. After his request was denied, he threatened to sue West Milford not under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), but under the common law right of access, which is still recognized and enforceable in New Jersey. O’Shea’s October 3, 2007 letter to the Mayor and Council and a draft of his threatened lawsuit constitute pages 1 through 37 of the PDF file that can be found here.

Upon receipt of the threatened suit, West Milford relented and provided O’Shea with more narrowly redacted versions of the charging documents. Those documents are at pages 38 through 43 at the PDF file that can be found here

CONCLUSION

Based on the fact that West Milford has provided at least some information regarding one of their police disciplinary matters, I believe that activists ought to try getting similar information from other towns. In order to aid in that process, I have developed some “model” records request forms that can be downloaded at form and exhibits to form.

If you send in a request, please share the results with me.

Finally, a very helpful source of information is an article entitled "Sunshine on the Thin Blue Line: Public Access to Police Internal Affairs Files." For a copy of it, click here

John Paff

Somerset, New Jersey

paff@pobox.com