from a lawyer re: apparently many police depts feel they can ignore [f.o.i] laws

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Leslie <leslie.sussan () verizon net>
Date: January 14, 2007 6:17:49 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] re: apparently many police depts feel they can  
ignore [f.o.i] laws


> If the people WHO violate the FOIA law are sworn police officers,
> and, by that
> swearing, they are sworn to uphold the law, and they are now
> violating the law, I
> wonder....
>
> I wonder if that behavior is Perjury?
>
> Any lawyers out there in IPland?
>
> Bob Rosenberg

No, it is not perjury, in my opinion as a lawyer in IPland (and a former
federal prosecutor).  Perjury is nearly universally defined to be a
knowingly falsehood about a material matter while under lawful oath  
to tell
the truth.  Violating their oaths to uphold the law, if they did  
that, would
not prove that they were knowingly lying at the time they took those  
oaths.
Breaking promises may be bad in many ways but it does not constitute  
perjury
unless the promise you broke was a legally binding oath to tell the  
truth
about a particular matter and instead you purposely said something  
you knew
to be untrue.

I don't have easy access to the California rule in question but the  
penalty
for improperly withholding access to records made public by law would  
have
to be set out in the rule itself.  It would also be necessary to see  
whether
the law mandates instanteous access or provides some time frame to  
respond
and whether conflicting Privacy Law provisions may make public access to
some unredacted records problematic.

I certainly think that the last 6 years have seen a systematic  
weakening of
federal FOIA compliance, with such highlights as an Attorney General  
said to
have assured agencies that the Justice Dept would defend any  
withholding of
information.  It doesn't surprise me if the inevitable urge to cover  
up the
embarrassing unless forced to expose it would tend to win out at the  
state
level as well in this environment.  But I don't think the answer lies in
perjury law.

Leslie Sussan




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