Please accept this as my request for government records under both OPRA and the common law right of access. Thank you very much for your commitment to transparent government.

BACKGROUND:

I am interested in obtaining certain records maintained by the municipal prosecutor. The records I seek, even though they were prepared by the prosecutor, are also kept on file with the municipal court. Because the requested records have been filed with the court, I have been told by other municipal clerks to whom I've made similar requests that I need to submit my records request to the municipal court administrator. I do not wish to do that because the municipal court is not subject to OPRA, which has a seven business-day response period, but rather to R.1:38 which has no specific response period. In sum, getting records from a court is much harder than getting them from a municipality because of the differences between OPRA and R.1:38.

I assert that the office of municipal prosecutor is not part of the court and that records on file with the municipal prosecutor's office are subject to OPRA. Indeed, the New Jersey Division of Archives and Records Management has issued a records retention schedule (M170000-001) for the Municipal Prosecutor's Office which requires "case files" to be maintained by that office for fifteen years but recommends a "transfer of these records, 6 months after closed, to the custody of the municipality for storage for the term of the retention period [but] legal custody and control of these records will remain with the Office of the Municipal Prosecutor."

RECORDS REQUESTED:

An Appendix to Part VII of the New Jersey Court Rules, titled "Guidelines for Operation of Plea Agreements in the Municipal Courts of New Jersey" allows the Beachwood Municipal Prosecutor to submit "a Request to Approve Plea Agreement . . . signed by the prosecutor and by the defendant" instead of appearing in person on the record whenever a plea agreement is entered into. I would like copies of all such Request to Approve Plea Agreement forms that were signed by municipal prosecutor during the months of May and June 2023.