“Keep my name out ya mouth!”

One truism of law enforcement is that police officers frequently interact with citizens at some of the worst times of that citizen’s life. With situations ranging from finding deceased loved ones to being assaulted to being the victim of a property crime, those who report crimes to the police are often under a great deal of stress. Likewise, those who are arrested are not having a good day and both parties would often prefer to simply forget that the incident occurred. Then, they pick up the local newspaper (or a publication at their local convenience store) and their name and a rendition of the events are plastered there for everyone to read. Isn’t there some way to keep that from being made public?

The short answer is a resounding no. The first reason is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its state equivalent, Article 2 Section 22 of the Oklahoma Constitution. Both those provisions, taken together with judicial decisions interpreting them, bar virtually any law limiting the freedom of speech and of the press. This freedom is one of the foundations on which this country was built. If you want to know why it’s so important, realize that one of the hallmarks of a police state is that the government begins arresting people privately, and keeping their records private. This type of secrecy is required for a dictatorship, and its absence is conversely one of the hallmarks of a free nation. Thus, it is plainly important to maintain these records as open as possible. As an adjunct of that,

As an adjunct of that, Oklahoma has enacted what are commonly called “Sunshine Laws,” notably among them the Open Records Act, found in Title 51, beginning at Section 24A.1. That Act requires government agencies to make certain records public, because, as explained by Section 24A.2, “the people are vested with the inherent right to know and be fully informed about their government . . . so they may efficiently and intelligently exercise their inherent political power.”

Among the records required to be public are virtually all records relating to calls for service by law enforcement, dispatch records, arrests, including the identity of the arrestee and the reason they were arrested, and charges filed and their ultimate disposition. Once again, the purpose of making these records public is to allow citizens to monitor and maintain political control over law enforcement agencies, rather than allowing them to become secret police who disappear those who dissent from or protest against government actions. If you want to see how that works, just take a look at Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, where those who protest can disappear without warning, or even wind up “mysteriously” dead. Public access to information is a cornerstone to the ability of our citizens to continue to exercise control over our government, and control over law enforcement is a key component of that control.

But what about my privacy? If I’m arrested, and I don’t want that made public, can’t I do something about it? Not really. Other than juveniles, no one has a right to privacy on their public criminal records.

About the only way anyone can be punished for revealing public information is if they falsify it. Libel (written publication of falsehoods) and slander (oral communication of falsehoods) are available as bases for a lawsuit in appropriate circumstances. However, truth is an absolute defense to either cause of action, and if a reporter is simply relaying what public records state, then there can be no liability, even if the charges prove to be ill-founded and are ultimately dismissed. They were filed, and the arrestee was arrested, so even if the basis was falsified, the report that “these are what the public records state” is still truthful.

Those records are akin to anything else you display to the public. And as a certain actor once known as the Fresh Prince recently discovered, trying to punish someone for commenting on something public which is also embarrassing or painful can lead to a whole host of problems. This is one of the prices of retaining an open, free society.