Professional standards
Dear Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office,
This is a request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form. Please acknowledge receipt of this message.
Records requested:
All emails letters phone calls from anyone in the Monmouth county prosecutors office ordering any investigator to ignore reports of misconduct from the public concerning attorney general's mandatory order 2018-3 .
All letters emails phone calls to investigators ordering suggesting implying that complaints of misconduct by police chiefs for disobeying this order be ignored ,delayed ,or obstructed.
All letters emails phone calls directing investigators to not investigate each individual complaint on violation of attorney general order 2018-3 to its logical conclusion.
Yours faithfully,
R Lord
Dear Mr. Lord,
This email timely responds to the below public records request, which we
are denying for the reasons explained herein.
Summarized, the requests are for "all emails, letters, phone calls" which
"order," "direct," "imply," or "suggest" that violations of Attorney
General 2018-3 not be investigated. The first of the three requests is
for such communications "from anyone in the Monmouth County Prosecutor's
Office." The second and third requests do not include a sender or
speaker, only a recipient which is described as "investigators.” These
record requests are invalid on grounds they are vague, overbroad, and
require research and subjective judgment by the record custodian.
“OPRA requires a party requesting access to a public record to
specifically describe the document sought so that the records may be
readily and reasonably identified within the short time frame within which
the government custodians must respond. As such, a proper request under
OPRA must identify with reasonable clarity those documents that are
desired, and a party cannot satisfy this requirement by simply requesting
all of an agency’s documents.” Spectraserv, Inc. v. Middlesex Cty Util.
Auth., 416 N.J. Super. 565, 576 (App. Div. 2010). Additionally, an OPRA
request should not require the records custodian to undertake a subjective
analysis to understand the nature of the request. Paff v. Galloway Twp.,
229 N.J. 340, 355 (2017). OPRA “is not intended as a research tool [that
persons] may use to force government officials to identify and siphon
useful information…. Wholesale requests for general information to be
analyzed, collated, and compiled by the responding government entity are
not [valid]. In short, OPRA does not countenance open-ended searches of
an agency’s files.” MAG Entm’t, LLC v. Division of Alc. Beverage Control,
375 N.J. Super. 534, 546, 549 (App. Div. 2005).
The requests below do not meet these legal requisites to a valid OPRA
request. Because your request is for verbal, written, or electronic
communications by “anyone in the county prosecutor’s office,” the
custodian would have to interview every prosecutor’s office employee –
past or present (the request is unbounded by any date or date range) – to
ascertain whether he/she uttered a communication that could be interpreted
as, for example, “suggesting” or “implying” that an investigation of a
2018-3 complaint be “delayed.” Designating “investigator” as the
communication recipient does little to narrow or particularize the
request, as it names no particular person or persons, and could include
any police officer, detective, or agent at any agency at the state, county
or municipal level. The words “suggesting” and “implying” are subjective
terms, leaving the custodian to make a judgment regarding whether a
particular record could be interpreted as meeting the descriptor. The
word “ignored” is also vague: could a letter indicating that a 2018-3
complaint is unsubstantiated and thus requires no further investigation be
construed as one that “ignores” or “obstructs” a complaint? I do not
understand what is meant at all by the request for all “phone calls.” The
requests are not valid because they do not specifically describe or
identify particular documents; instead, they describe records by content,
in wholly broad, vague, unsearchable terms.
Without waiving the above objection, we further respond: the Monmouth
County Prosecutor’s Office is not in the habit of “ordering” or
“directing” investigators to “ignore,” “delay” or “obstruct” complaints
into legal violations. Your request does not identify a particular record
for production. It instead demands production of a vague category of
records. To the extent we could try to respond to that request as framed,
it is denied for lack of any responsive record.
In the event of a clarification or appeal, this Office reserves the right
to raise any other ground for denial not raised in this response. Failure
of this Office to assert an exception or privilege at this time should not
be considered a waiver of any grounds for denial.
Respectfully,
Mary Juliano
Assistant Prosecutor
-----Original Message-----
From: R Lord <[OPRA #18596 email]>
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2020 7:59 AM
To: OPRA <[Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office request email]>
Subject: [EXTERNAL]OPRA request - Professional standards
Dear Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office,
This is a request for public records made under OPRA and the common law
right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form. Please
acknowledge receipt of this message.
Records requested:
All emails letters phone calls from anyone in the Monmouth county
prosecutors office ordering any investigator to ignore reports of
misconduct from the public concerning attorney general's mandatory order
2018-3 .
All letters emails phone calls to investigators ordering suggesting
implying that complaints of misconduct by police chiefs for disobeying
this order be ignored ,delayed ,or obstructed.
All letters emails phone calls directing investigators to not investigate
each individual complaint on violation of attorney general order 2018-3
to its logical conclusion.
Yours faithfully,
R Lord
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