New York Civil Liberties Union v. City of Rochester

Court: New York State Court of Appeals

Date Filed: July 3, 2024

Background: In 2020, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city of Rochester and the Rochester Police Department for failing to disclose records relating to complaints of police misconduct in response to a public records request. The request was made following the repeal of Section 50-a of New York’s Civil Rights Law, a controversial provision initially enacted to protect officer safety and privacy but which had long been used to shield misconduct from public scrutiny.

While the trial court ordered the city and the police department to turn over the records, it held, among other things, that government officials could withhold records related to claims or complaints that the police department had itself deemed “unsubstantiated.” However, as NYCLU argued, just because a claim is termed “unsubstantiated” does not mean that no misconduct occurred. According to news reports, for instance, the New York City Police Department typically dismisses the vast majority of misconduct complaints against its officers as unsubstantiated after conducting internal reviews. Moreover, the legislature, in enacting and then repealing Section 50-a, did not differentiate between “unsubstantiated” and “substantiated.” 

On appeal, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, modified the lower court’s ruling, finding that so-called unsubstantiated complaints were not categorically exempt from public disclosure under the state public records law’s personal privacy exemption. 

The city and police department then appealed to the New York State Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. 

Our Position: In a friend-of-the-court brief joined by 32 news and media organizations, the Reporters Committee urged the Court of Appeals to affirm the ruling of the Fourth Department and hold that, upon the repeal of Section 50-a, all complaints of law enforcement misconduct are presumptively public records.

• The New York Legislature repealed Section 50-a to create a presumption of openness, thereby enabling press and public access to all police officer complaint records and increasing law enforcement transparency. This repeal came on the heels of the death of George Floyd and questions regarding the Minneapolis officers connected to his death.  The New York Legislature made a clear policy choice in repealing Section 50-a. 

• New York law expressly entitles the public to the Rochester police department complaint records at issue in this case, and their disclosure would not constitute an “unwarranted invasion of privacy.”

• Access to complaints of police misconduct enable the press to report on law enforcement and provide the public and lawmakers with accurate information to shape reform.

From the Brief: “New York is home to the second largest number of law enforcement officers in the country. Without access to records of complaints of misconduct against those officers, including unsubstantiated ones, the press cannot inform the public about individual instances or patterns of alleged misconduct, or about how such allegations are handled by law enforcement agencies.”