June 15, 1998

 

 

 

Mr. Nemesio Turull
93-A-2948
Fishkill Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 1245
Beacon, NY 12508

The staff of the Committee on Open Government is authorized to issue advisory opinions.
The ensuing staff advisory opinion is based solely upon the information presented in your
correspondence.

Dear Mr. Turull:

I have received your letter of May 14 and the materials attached to it.

According to the correspondence, you requested records from the New York City
Police Department in September of 1994. In February of 1995, those portions of your
request involving complaint follow up reports and police officers' memo book entries were
denied in their entirety. As I understand the matter, you requested essentially the same
records in 1997, but the request was denied on the ground that it was duplicative of the
first request.

In my opinion, in view of the grounds for the denial of your initial request, and the
rejection of those grounds by the State's highest court in the decision rendered in Gould v.
New York City Police Department [89 NY2d 267 (1996)], even though the request may
duplicate that made years ago, the Department should accept the request and determine
rights of access in accordance with the direction provided by Gould.

The foregoing is not intended to suggest that the records in question must be disclosed
in their entirety. While the Court rejected the Department's blanket denial of access, it
specified that several grounds for denial may be applicable, depending on the contents of
the records and the effects of disclosure.

I hope that I have been of assistance.

Sincerely,

 

Robert J. Freeman
Executive Director
RJF:jm
cc: Susan Petito