Asbury Park Press v. Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, 864 A.2d 446 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2004)

Cases | Asbury Park Press v. Ocean County Prosecutor¿s Office, 864 A.2d 446 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2004) | 2018

The plaintiff, Asbury Park Press (“Press”), sought to compel the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office (“Prosecutor”) to release a copy of a 911 recording and transcript relating to a double homicide. The Prosecutor denied the request, stating that such a release would violate the Victim’s Rights Amendment (VRA) and the Crime Victim’s Bill of Rights, both of which grant a crime victim the right to be treated with compassion. The Press filed an Order to Show Cause and sought a judgment directing the Prosecutor to release the tape and transcript. The Press argued that the first section of the Open Public Records Act (“the Act” or “OPRA”), which states that “a public agency has a responsibility and an obligation to safeguard from public access a citizen’s personal information” is merely precatory and that the VRA and the Bill of Rights do not apply to this situation because they were not intended to be a limitation or an implied exemption to an OPRA request. The court of appeals held that, considering the extensive discussion of privacy concerns in the legislative history, the court was convinced that the Legislature intended to provide protection against disclosure in those instances in which a person had a reasonable expectation of privacy and, therefore, the request for the tape was properly denied. Furthermore, since even release of a redacted transcript would intrude on the reasonable expectation of privacy that the court found is protected by OPRA, the request to release the transcript was also denied.