COLUMN: TCSO Lawsuit Reminder Of State's Weak Public Records Laws

Editor's Note: This is an opinion column.

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Attorney Jay Stuck, the general counsel for the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office, emailed me a series of responses to public records requests in mid-January regarding a range of data about the sheriff's office and county jail.

His response was prompt — coming in roughly a month — professional and totally above board.

As I saw it, though, there were a couple of problems that I knew would likely keep me from getting my hands on a trove of internal information. In a completely legal and ethical counter-request by the attorney, I would have to pay $25 per record to access what I was after.

Click here to subscribe to our daily email newsletters and breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox and mobile devices for free. You can also support local journalism by donating as little as $5 a month to become a supporting member or by downloading our free Patch mobile app.

This practice is far from rare in Alabama, but it proved another nagging headache for the free press just trying to access public information. I've heard horror stories from other reporters across the state when making large-scale requests, so I probably should be thankful my bill wasn't higher.

It's important to note also that newspaper budgets across the state are facing unprecedented strain and forgoing even the slightest expense for something like public records could prove the difference in keeping the lights on that month — especially at the small town, community level, where their oversight is needed now more than ever as corruption runs roughshod alongside a raging pandemic.

As I previously reported, Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ron Abernathy was sued by the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center in November, with the civil rights advocacy group alleging that the sheriff failed to respond to multiple requests dating back to May for data relating to the spread of the coronavirus inside the Tuscaloosa County Jail.

The SPLC filed for a voluntary dismissal of the civil lawsuit on Friday, citing that the records requested from Abernathy did not exist pertaining to two separate virus outbreaks in the jail in May and September.

While I have no doubt there were gaps and blind spots in Abernathy's approach to formal documentation, I've been in this business long enough to know that it comes with the territory of running such a large-scale department as an elected official. That's not a defense, it's just a fact — likely exacerbated further by an ongoing pandemic that has twisted up the guts of our overly bureaucratic system.

My post-mortem analysis of the legal case is simply this: Abernathy dropped the ball on a public records request, but owned it when asked directly and when taken to task by the public. If I'm being fair, that's about all you can ask for at this point. He was held accountable, took responsibility and said he would do better.

This isn't an opinion column about any wrongdoings on the part of our sheriff and I honestly have to commend him for his candor on the eve of the lawsuit being dismissed. Rather, my argument is against state policy that could have prevented this in the first place and I hope these few words serve as an indictment of our toothless public records laws designed to insulate the very politicians who wrote them.

When examining how far short our laws fall, look no further than a failed piece of legislation that called for set timetables for public officials to respond to records requests. While state law also puts no restrictions on how much government entities can charge for requests, anyone with deep enough pockets would probably have the means to at least circumvent the financial hurdles of accessing the information they seek. But, in theory, I could have paid the $225 or so for the requests, then never hear back, so long as my request is formally acknowledged as being received.

Had there been any kind of reasonable timetable set out in state law, Abernathy would have been statutorily-bound to respond to the SPLC's initial request in a timely fashion and there would have been no point for the litigation and all the politically-charged vitriol in the community over access to public information.

From where I sit, though, I can say it has been refreshing to see the public so engaged in Tuscaloosa and my hope is that focus and energy will now turn to petitioning lawmakers in Montgomery to make it easier for not only media, but the public at large, to have free — or at least regulated — access to information pertaining to the entities funded by their tax dollars.

The 2021 Alabama Legislative Session kicked off this week and I'm likely a fool for holding on to any hope that a new incarnation of the Alabama Open Records Act will gain traction. For the sake of transparency and accountability, though, I urge those at home to contact their local lawmakers and demand this issue be addressed.

If we want an informed community and state, we must first start by rewriting laws intentionally set up to shield the officials who would otherwise be held accountable by them.

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and columnist. He is currently the community publisher of Tuscaloosa Patch and can be reached by emailing ryan.phillips@patch.com.