South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

According to the Charleston Post and Courier, the Charleston police department has begun heavily redacting information in requested incident reports:

The Charleston Police Department has taken a troubling new direction in the way it handles crime reports by withholding from the public information that had been previously provided. The city's new policy threatens the public's right to that information under state law.

The Post and Courier's Glenn Smith reported Sunday that police are blacking out names, addresses, phone numbers and other information from crime reports that, for years, have been released in their entirety.

So, sue them. Please. FOIA specifically provides for a cause of action, including the recovery of attorneys fees, when an agency does not release information that it is required to under the freedom of information act. Police departments don't want to release information - no government agency does - that is why we had to have legislation forcing them to release information in the first place. If they think that you will not sue them to obtain the information, they will continue to black out portions of documents and play games with how much information they release.

This is similar to the redacted incident reports and documents that we receive from the prosecutor in discovery in criminal cases. The Horry County solicitor's office, and others around the state, as a matter of policy redact not only victims' names and contact information, but the names and contact information of witnesses. So, file a motion to compel and have the judge order the prosecutor to provide the information.

The prosecutor always says, in shock, but Judge, they will threaten or kill our witnesses! I have not yet seen a judge grant their request to keep their witness information secret. And I have yet to threaten or kill a witness. The defendant has a right to confront the witnesses against him, and therefore a defense attorney has a duty to investigate every witness in the case before the case gets to trial. When prosecutors refuse to comply with their discovery obligations, and continue to hide evidence in their cases, it is impossible to comply with the requirements of the Constitution, defense counsel cannot do their job, and innocent people do get convicted at trial.