Opinion
Decided June 12, 2001.
APPEAL, by permission of the Court of Appeals, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the Third Judicial Department, entered January 11, 2001, which affirmed a judgment of the Supreme Court (Dan Lamont, J.), entered in Albany County in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, granting petitioner's application to annul a determination that denied his Freedom of Information Law request for State Police records and documents pertaining to his arrest and conviction of certain sex crimes.
Submitted by Frank K. Walsh, for appellants.
Submitted by Steven B. Wasserman, for respondent.
Before: Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Smith, Levine, Ciparick, Wesley, Rosenblatt and Graffeo concur.
MEMORANDUM:
The order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, without costs, and the matter remitted to Supreme Court for further proceedings in accordance with this Memorandum.
All government records are presumptively open for public inspection unless specifically exempt from disclosure by State or Federal statute (Public Officers Law § 87). Here, Civil Rights Law § 50-b(1) provides a statutory exemption from disclosure for documents that tend to identify the victim of a sex offense. Civil Rights Law § 50-b(2)(a), which allows disclosure of such documents to a person charged with a sex offense, does not apply to petitioner as he stands convicted following trial (see, Matter of Fappiano v. New York City Police Dept., 95 N.Y.2d 738). Nevertheless, the police must meet their burden of making a particularized showing that the statutory exemption from disclosure pursuant to Civil Rights Law § 50-b applies to all the records petitioner seeks (see, id.;Gould v. New York City Police Dept., 89 N.Y.2d 267). Accordingly, we remit the matter to Supreme Court for a determination whether the police have met this burden.
Additionally, insofar as the requested records are exempt from disclosure pursuant to State statute (Public Officers Law § 87; Civil Rights Law § 50-b), the police are not obligated to provide the records even though redaction might remove all details which "tend to identify the victim" (see, Civil Rights Law § 50-b; see also, Matter of Short v. Board of Mgrs. of Nassau Med. Ctr., 57 N.Y.2d 399).
On review of submissions pursuant to section 500.4 of the Rules, order reversed, without costs, and matter remitted to Supreme Court, Albany County, for further proceedings in accordance with the memorandum herein.