In a victory for government transparency, the Colorado Supreme Court has said law enforcement agencies may not withhold police personnel records simply because a request does not reference a specific incident of misconduct.

The 5-2 decision on Monday resolves a hurdle for media organizations, in particular, seeking access to internal affairs documents, and falls in line with the intent of the legislators who sponsored the disputed legal provision.

“It doesn’t require that people seeking to inspect the files know of the specific, identifiable instances of misconduct or that they include any such designation in their request,” wrote Justice William W. Hood III in the June 28 majority opinion.

During the time the justices were weighing the appeal, the General Assembly was working on a fix to achieve the same outcome. Legislation awaiting the governor’s signature would remove the requirement from the law itself to identify a specific instance of misconduct.

The Court’s interpretation of the transparency provision required the justices to evaluate House Bill 1119 from 2019, which required law enforcement agencies to turn over upon request all completed investigation documents “related to a specific, identifiable incident of alleged misconduct” involving the public.

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office maintained that the person who requests the files must be the one to identify the specific incident investigated. Regina M. Sprinkle, who challenged the agency’s refusal to produce records, said the sheriff’s office bore the responsibility of identifying relevant documents.

Hood acknowledged that understanding the legislature’s intent involved not “immediately zooming in on a few words.” Considering what a specific, identifiable incident under investigation would logically be, “we read it as distinguishing an incident of alleged misconduct that is capable of being identified and investigated from one that is not (e.g., a vague allegation about an officer’s general behavior on the job),” Hood wrote.

The issue arose from the criminal prosecution of Sprinkle, who submitted a request to the sheriff’s office for internal affairs records of the two deputies who will testify against her. Specifically, the defense asked for complaints filed against the deputies, investigation reports and disciplinary actions.

The sheriff’s office refused to provide the records, saying Sprinkle’s request must reference “a specific, identifiable incident of alleged misconduct involving the in-uniform and/or on-duty conduct of a peace officer and a member of the public.”

After the defense filed a subpoena for the information, District Court Judge Chad Miller held a hearing and ultimately agreed that the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act supported the release of the records, with the exception of ongoing investigations. The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

In agreeing to take the case and bypass the normal appeals process, the Court alluded to potential damage that could occur from improper disclosure of officer records.

But ultimately, the majority determined the General Assembly intended to eliminate the discretion of record keepers to deny access to internal affairs records. Testimony from the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time lamented blanket denials of records requests on the grounds that releasing documents was not in the public interest. Journalists also made statements about the usefulness of requesting police files to discover patterns within a department.

“In sum, these media witnesses’ testimony indicates that their routine practice was to request officer files without knowing what they would uncover; that is, without necessarily knowing of a specific, identifiable incident they wished to investigate,” Hood explained. “And the legislators’ questioning of these witnesses doesn’t indicate that the legislators had any concern with members of the public making such broad requests.”

One of the sponsors of HB1119, former Sen. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette, agreed with the majority’s interpretation.

“In a bill designed to increase transparency and accountability, it would have been counterintuitive to limit records available to the public to only those instances where a member of the public happened to know the exact incident to base the request upon,” he said on Tuesday.

Justice Carlos A. Samour Jr. filed a dissent to the majority decision, and Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright joined him. Samour scoffed at the interpretation of the records law as “a criminal-justice-records version of ‘Go Fish.’ “

“The practical effect of today’s decision is to allow access to all completed internal investigation files regarding any incidents of alleged misconduct by a peace officer involving a member of the public,” he wrote. “Splicing and dicing the subsection cannot cloud the legislature’s choice to describe one public records request, corresponding to one investigation, with respect to one incident of alleged misconduct, as to which one summary may initially be provided, potentially resulting in the disclosure of one investigation file.”

Jeffrey A. Roberts, executive director for the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said on Tuesday that the police disciplinary process will be more transparent with the Court’s clarification of the law.

“Because it is worded so specifically,” wrote Roberts in July of last year, “the Colorado statute does not guarantee the public will see the disciplinary history of someone like Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes.”

A February 2018 report from University of Denver students and faculty detailed the results of a request to more than 40 Colorado law enforcement agencies for a list of internal affairs investigations. Twenty-four agencies did not supply any records, and of the 17 that did, none released a completed investigation file when requested.

The case is In re People v. Sprinkle.