Georgia Republican legislators slotted in major changes to the Georgia Open Records Act – including limiting public access to police reports – near the end of its legislative session without the regular due process most bills receive.
The House Rules Committee passed an altered version of Senate Bill 12 late in the day Wednesday, which would restrict the already-limited amount of information the police must disclose to the public after a crime occurs. It also adds new exemptions to the state’s open records law including communication with and records or data “relating to” the legislative branch.
The Current requested interviews with multiple members of Coastal Georgia’s legislative delegation about the controversial bill. Sen. Ben Watson (R-Savannah), a co-sponsor of the original SB12, was “unavailable” for an interview Thursday, he said through an intermediary.
Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah), on the House Rules Committee, told The Current he supports the bill and it doesn’t impede access to the police’s first “incident report”: “Everything that I get, that I see, is on that first police report.” Rep. Bill Hitchens (R-Guyton) and Rep. Al Williams (D-Midway), also on the committee, did not respond to requests for comment.
SB12 was originally three pages long and addressed a specific Georgia Supreme Court ruling regarding whether the Open Records Act applied to private contractors working on behalf of a public agency (It does, said the high court). But Wednesday’s revised bill tacked on changes with two days left in the legislative session and without the chance for members of the public to comment or even read the proposed bill.
The Current obtained a copy of the proposed legislation, which the legislature has not posted on its website. The altered bill narrows the initial information the police must disclose after a crime occurs to only “the first incident report completed on a standard incident report form.”
According to the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, this changes the focus of the law away from the nature of the information — what crime occurred, who responded, what time and where, and was there an arrest — to a specific piece of paper.
“It just really gives a strong tool to law enforcement to play games with public information if they want to,” says Sarah Brewerton-Palmer, the foundation’s president.
One of the bill’s advocates, Rep. Rob Leverett, a Republican from Elberton, said he did not think the changes were all that “substantive,” during the Wednesday hearing.
“This was simply viewed as an opportunity to make some cleanup which was desired and not viewed as that substantive a change,” Leverett said. “No grand conspiracy here.”
Leverett’s colleague, Rep. Victor Anderson (R-Cornelia) said the additions were to address “issues that have come up over the last few years in communications and dealings through the courts.”
Hidden from view?
The altered bill appears aimed in part at an issue brought up in a recent public records lawsuit filed against the City of Sandy Springs.
The city’s police department would release incident reports to a newspaper run by Appen Media that had one-sentence descriptions of a crime the agency responded to, while keeping an investigating officer’s narrative and further details about the crime on separate, supplemental reports. Those supplemental reports would be hidden from view.
Georgia Open Records law allows for examination of public documents with multiple exceptions — its most common one being records pertaining to an ongoing law enforcement investigation. But the Act specifically allows that “initial police arrest reports and initial incident reports” are considered public records.
That practice by Sandy Springs is in use by many other Georgia police departments. After a controversial shooting in June 2022, The Current filed an Open Records Act request to the Savannah Police Department for the initial incident reports and supplemental reports after SPD Officer Ernest Ferguson fatally shot Saudi Lee in Carver Village.
The agency turned over one document: a two-sentence report by Ferguson, which stated: “On 06/24/2022 at approximately 1156 hours, I initiated a subject stop at W Gwinnett St and Crosby St. During this stop, a use of force occurred. My (body-worn camera) was activated.”
It took multiple public records requests, months of journalistic reporting, and a lawsuit by Lee’s family before the public truly learned what happened that day.
Free speech advocates fear that this method becomes more widespread if the bill passes as is.
“My concern is that this amendment is trying to bless that practice, which I think is an inappropriate use of the Open Records Act,” said Brewerton-Palmer.
Questions of vetting
Some House Democrats in the chamber expressed incredulity about the bill’s close timing and broad language.
“As far as you know, this language may not have ever been vetted at all, other than what we’re doing right here?” Rep. Stacey Evans (D-Atlanta) asked Anderson, who presented the changes on Wednesday.
“I can’t speak to what may have been presented in the past. I’m not knowledgeable of any presentation of this, this session,” Anderson said.
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