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at Mercer U. is the issue in lawsuit By Tom Bennett Atlanta, Aug. 6 -- Thrilling open-government advocates, stunning the deans of private universities, and employing simple, clear logic, Judge L.A. McConnell Jr. ruled as follows in February: When you put on your badge and police in this state, then its law enforcement open-records laws apply to you. Mercer University certainly does not agree, and Judge McConnell's decision in Houston County Superior Court is waiting to go on the docket of the Georgia Court of Appeals. "If Mercer did not police its property, a police force of the local government would, and the records at issue would be available to the public," Judge McConnell wrote. "The court finds that the public's interest in safety and in the transparency of public affairs outweighs Mercer's interest in protecting the privacy of the university and its students." He thus sided with a fast-rising young Atlanta lawyer, Amanda Farahany of Barrett & Farahany LLP, in opening up the records of the Mercer University Police Department. Mercer "employs officers who have the same law enforcement powers, including the power of arrest, as a law enforcement officer of the local government with police jurisdiction over the campus," Farahany told the Fulton County Daily Report. As any Georgian of any tenure knows, Mercer is in Bibb, and not Houston, County. However, the case had to be moved one county south, to Houston. The reason, as Farahany explained, is that all of Bibb County's judges are graduates of Mercer Law School. Now the nation's private campuses are watching with interest what happens in Georgia. Harvard University, Cornell University, and Indiana's Taylor University all maintain that as private schools, they are not subject to state open records laws, according to the Macon Telegraph in its January editorial supporting Farahany. Campus crime openness has come a long way thanks to the 1990s requirement for public campuses to keep logs of index crimes, and periodically publish them. In a 1999 open-government survey, 80 percent of public campuses complied. Since then the survey's two laggard campuses have begun complying, too. Yet no one in freedom of information circles ever expected access law to move this quickly onto private campuses. It's unexpected good news, and could be short-lived unless the Georgia court agrees with Farahany and the amicus brief of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. The latter is joined by Security on Campus Inc., Society of Professional Journalists, and Student Press Law Center. "There can be no excuse for the non-exempt police records of the MUPD to be hidden from the citizens of Georgia," according to the amicus brief. " Appellant's board of trustees chose to create a campus police department and authorized that police department to exercise public police powers pursuant to the authority of O.C.G.A. ß 20-8-2, and then obtained certification of its officers so that they could exercise arrest and other public police functions on campus. "Under the Open Records Act, records maintained relating to exercise of such public functions are subject to public scrutiny. "This is an important case. The non-exempt records as to the exercise of the police power of Georgia should be open to the citizens of this state, whether the police department is one of the state itself or one exercising the state's police power... "The Mercer University Police Department cannot hide its exercise of its public function behind the skirts of its private university parent. "It is respectfully submitted that Judge McConnell's well-reasoned decision on this important issue should be affirmed." The brief was prepared by F.T. "Tread" Davis Jr. of McKenna, Long & Aldridge. He is a member of the Legal Committee of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. This argument bears his trademark close: "As Justice Brandeis noted, 'Sunshine is the best disinfectant.' " IF THE GEORGIA appeals court were to uphold Farahany, it would be another victory for police openness coming on the heels of the 2002 "Blue Book." This guide was prepared and signed off on by GFAF and eight other groups. They represent either the media or the law enforcement agencies. The 38-page booklet became the first document in the state's history to definitely answer these questions: |
