FALL 2006 NEWSLETTER
GEORGIA FOI ACCESS
GEORGIA FIRST AMENDMENT FOUNDATION

Sen. Adelman opens private campus daily crime logs, and this important step in Georgia is a precedent for campuses nationwide

The ‘first expansion of Georgia sunshine law since 1999’

‘When private institutions take on public roles such as law enforcement, then the obligations of the Open Records Act should apply’

 By Tom Bennett

Lilburn, Ga., July 20, 2006 – Deftly appending 54 words onto an anti-street gang bill in the final hours of the ’06 session, Sen. David Adelman (D-Decatur) achieved one of the most significant advances in Georgia freedom of information.

Gov. Sonny Perdue signed the Georgia Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act on April 28, and it became law on July 1.

The act’s Section Five is, in the words of Hollie Manheimer of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, the first expansion of Georgia sunshine law since 1999.

It now becomes 20-8-7 of the Annotated Code of Georgia. Here it is:

"Law enforcement records created, received, or maintained by campus policemen that relate to the investigation of criminal conduct and crimes as defined under Georgia law and which are not subject to protection from disclosure by any other Georgia law shall be made available within a reasonable time after request for public inspection and copying."

Adelman is the Minority Whip of the Georgia Senate. With those 54 words, and without ever having to employ the term "private," this four-year legislative veteran has brought the private campus security departments into the arena of public inspection and copying of records.

"Before this law, the only place where a person in Georgia could be arrested, detained or investigated without access to records was on the 11 private campuses," Adelman said.

"Over time the private colleges and universities have become like small towns, and in some cases they are even larger than many Georgia towns. Georgians work, live, play and study on those campuses. It’s not surprising that they got their own police departments; that’s a good thing. But when private institutions take on public roles such as law enforcement, then the obligations of the Open Records Act should apply."

Happily, criminal street-gang activity and the leafy quads of the state’s private universities and colleges aren’t thought of in the same breath. However, these two components of Georgia life merged in important 2006 legislation.

Adelman, the Democrat from Decatur, and four Gwinnett County Republicans reached agreement in the final hours, and their bills got married. David Casas of Lilburn, Mike Coan of Lawrenceville, Melvin Everson of Snellville and Bobby Reese of Sugar Hill so far in their careers don’t immediately come to mind when you talk about the history of freedom of information in Georgia, but now they’ve helped make it along with the deft, skilled Adelman.

He found a campus ally early on when the Emory University police testified in favor of Adelman’s 2005 bill for openness of campus crime. Others did not, however. They signed onto Mercer University’s diehard defense of secrecy of crime records in the 2004 lawsuit, Farahany v. Mercer.

At this writing in midsummer ’06, the 11 campuses’ web sites typically have the official campus safety reports published in compliance with the federal Campus Security Act of 1990. It is summer school time, and so new disclosure surely will debut with the Fall semester. No private campus sites we found go any farther than the bureaucratic "safety reports."

Nowhere in any private school’s web site are there statistics remotely comparable to the University of Georgia’s breathtaking daily log. On July 20, I can read the daily UGA crime log for -- July 20.

The site continues: "He gained access to her room by proceeding, unopposed, through three propped-open doors, each of which should have been locked. He was convicted and sentenced to death."

Then Jeanne Clery’s parents and other activists went to work to convince Congress and state legislatures that on these work and study locations for many Americans, there should be open government. Today those persons have an ally of growing stature to the South in Georgia.

Sen. David Adelman would not respond directly when asked where he rates this among his legislative accomplishments.

"Open government is very big with me," he answered. "So needless to say, this is something that is important to me."