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| Ohio Sheriffs Challenging Journalist Exception |
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| Misc |
| Written by Jeff Garvas |
| Tuesday, 27 March 2007 03:12 |
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Multiple elected County Sheriffs are challenging the statute that defines a journalist or asking various courts to assist them in defining a journalist, and in two cases so far the Sheriffs have named a reporter clearly employed by the Cincinnati Enquirer in their complaints, effectively delaying release of the information to what many would consider the most clear and common sense definition of a journalist. Last week we told you about our efforts to further raise the awareness of the journalist loophole in an article here, OFCC Raises Awareness of Media Access Loophole, and the saga continues. Shortly after that story the Cleveland Plain Dealer continued its efforts to follow the requests and our being named in a lawsuit filed by the Clermont County Sheriff Tim Rodenberg (a long-term friend to Gun Owners) and that county's Prosecutor's office. The complaint not only names me (Jeff Garvas) in the case, but also a reporter from the Cincinnati Enquirer, Governor Ted Strickland, and Attorney General Marc Dann. A similar but somewhat more simple complaint was filed in Mercer County asking the court to determine if the definition of a journalist is met by our request. That case has already had at least one hearing and may be the first to come to a resolution. It appears that as of Monday, March 26th, Erie County Sheriff Terry Lyons may have filed another complaint in that county naming myself and the same Cincinnati Enquirer Reporter seeking the same exact information. We have not been formally served, nor have we read that complaint despite a few requests for interviews from the media. We imagine it focuses on what is a journalist and do I meet the incredibly broad definition. These complaints are creating a statewide awareness of the fact that there is serious confusion over just what the statute defines as a journalist. On Thursday, March 29th, Ohio House Bill 9 will go into effect and make this issue even more confusing. Effective Thursday morning a Sheriff is required to allow a "journalist" to view the name, date of birth, and county of residence of those people who have been issued a license. The key word is view, since the statute prior to HB9 stated "disclose" and the new law is much more strict. Considering that a Sheriff is prohibited by law from "maintaining a list" of license holders by law and they may only allow a journalist to view the list there is a fundamental flaw with the new law that will most likely result in the administrative staffs of many Sheriff's offices breaking the law to comply with requests. The only document a Sheriff can have that has your name, age, and date of birth on it is your application, but allowing a journalist to "view" the application is risking them seeing the other information you provided, such as your street address. Since the statute says "view" the Sheriff can not even verbally read the information to a journalist. In other words, there is literally no way to comply with Ohio House Bill 9, and in order to comply we believe many offices will break the law to comply with requests. It's easy to come to this conclusion because we have received, in response to our many requests, complete photo copied lists of license holders or electronic files such as MS Word, PDF, etc. that have clearly been maintained since the inception of concealed carry in 2004. Those lists are illegal today and yet we know that they exist because they were provided to us. Some of them are obviously lists intended just for media requests. One list, written by hand, changes hand writing every 10-15 names indicating when batches of licenses are processed whomever did that batch is updating the media access list that should not exist by law. We are succeeding at making it clear that the journalist exception definition is incredibly vague. So vague, that the Clermont County Sheriff and Prosecutors have challenged it as unconstitutionally vague. A challenge that, should it succeed, could have the entire journalist exception thrown out by a court. This week we began relaying our concerns to the legislature in Columbus and will be seeking assistance from the legislature in permanently closing the journalist loophole. |