Rounding off Day Six of “Mississippi: The Secret State,” we’ve got Matt Williamson of the McComb Enterprise-Journal with Nuts and bolts: Which records are public in Mississippi. The boundary lines sound reasonable enough on paper:
[A] public body’s books, records, papers, accounts, letters, maps, photographs, films, cards, tapes or recordings – or reproductions of those items – should all be on the table for public viewing.
That covers a wide range of printed and digitized information, including jail and court dockets, city budgets and ordinances, land records and tax rolls.
However, state law also has a lengthy list of documents that are blocked from public access.
While an inmate’s arrest report, jail booking record, sentence and information about incarceration are supposed to be public records, some documents pertaining to the day-to-day operations of the sheriff’s office or police department that arrested the inmate are not.
The minutes of a public hospital’s board meeting are considered public records, but documents providing detailed information about the items on the agenda are not.
While you’re welcome to go to the courthouse and paw through who applied for marriage licenses or filed for divorces, you can’t have a copy of someone else’s marriage license or birth or death certificate.
Other types of documents blocked from public access include:
£¢ Records developed by judges, their aides or juries.
£¢ Personnel records, job applications and an employee’s letter of recommendation.
£¢ Documents made by attorneys representing a public body that relate to actual or prospective litigation.
£¢ Tax records.
£¢ Appraisal information concerning a government body’s sale or purchase of real estate.
£¢ Questions that will appear on a school test and their answers.
£¢ Records from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History that contain some archaeological data.
£¢ Records pertaining to economic development projects that are in the works.
£¢ Licensure applications and future licensing test questions.
£¢ Trade secrets submitted to a public body.
£¢ Medical reports submitted to the Mississippi Workers Compensation Commission.
£¢ Some records compiled in coroners’ investigations.
(Aw foot, I’m really INTO archaeological data!)
Anyhoo, if you want some kind of record from some kind of “public body,” sez here, you can submit a written request, and the PB can’t take more than 14 days to respond to it. It can also charge you a fee for copying the thing. But if it denies your request, it has to do so in writing and specify why you’re outta luck. And if that happens, you can
make informal attempts with the agency to revise the request or ask again.
If that doesn’t work, and the petitioners have reason to believe they were illegally denied access to public records, they can file suit in chancery court. If they win the suit, the public body could face a fine that may not exceed $100, and be ordered to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees.
You know how skeered they are of that $100 fine, so well . . . I dunno . . . might run up some bodacious legal expenses to hang over their heads if you’re certain you’ve got ‘em dead-to-rights.
A.n.d. a.r.e. y.o.u.? Kinely gotcha coming-and-going, don’t they?
