Northwestern DA can’t keep story straight while discussing transparency lawsuit
Northwestern DA can’t keep story straight while discussing transparency lawsuit
Asked about public records lawsuit, DA David Sullivan denies having records that his office already released in redacted form
Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan made a variety of false and contradictory claims while discussing The Mass Dump’s public records lawsuit against his office during a live radio interview in July — at one point even denying that he possesses the relevant records despite the fact that his office released them in redacted form a year and a half prior.
In June, the Dump filed suit against the Northwestern DA’s office for blacking out the names of more than 30 police officers from Brady disclosures, which are letters that prosecutors use to inform defendants of alleged crimes or misconduct by officers testifying against them. Prosecutors are required to make these disclosures so that defendants can challenge the officers’ credibility in court.
On the WHMP program Talk The Talk, Sullivan said the Dump had requested “the CORI” — an acronym for the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information law — “or criminal records of any police officers, whether it was minor or major, going back even before they were police officers.”
“We disagreed with that,” Sullivan said. “We thought that it should be done through the judicial process.”
Later in the interview, one of the hosts asked Sullivan to clarify what records his office possesses.
“We don’t have those records,” Sullivan responded. “It would be within the police department. And of course, one of the things that we said is, well, ask the police department.”
Sullivan’s office never told the Dump to contact any police departments about the records.
In response to another question, Sullivan said that not having the records would be one of his office’s defenses. But later, he seemed to again acknowledge that his office has the records.
“I think the public records law could be clearer as to whether these specific records are available,” Sullivan said. “If it’s got to go up to the Supreme Court for them to make that decision whether the public records law overrides the CORI law, then we’ll let the Supreme Court decide.”
However, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court already ruled in 2020 that the CORI law does not apply to arrest reports of police officers and other public officials. Sullivan did not acknowledge this decision during the interview.
“Limited Circumstance”
Many of the redacted records do not concern criminal charges at all — they instead contain allegations of misconduct that police departments investigated internally as noncriminal matters. The DA’s office refused to release these officers’ names too, arguing they are personnel records protected by the privacy exemption to the public record law.
In a landmark 2003 decision, the state Appeals Court found that internal affairs records are not personnel records under this exemption. And in 2020, the Legislature updated the exemption to explicitly say that it “shall not apply to records related to a law enforcement misconduct investigation.”
“There is an exception in the new law … about disciplinary records,” Sullivan said. “So we’re going to look at those and whether — if we can comply with those, that’s fine.”
He continued: “We don’t want to be holding information that can be released. But in this limited circumstance, I think that we have a position to stand on.”
Sullivan did not elaborate on that position nor did he address why his office refused to reveal the names after the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office sided with the Dump on both the CORI and privacy issues in three public records appeals.
During the interview, one of the Talk The Talk hosts mistakenly said that the Secretary’s of the Commonwealth’s Office sided with the DA’s office. Sullivan did not correct the host.
“The Very Distant Past”
Throughout the interview, Sullivan repeatedly said the information his office is withholding relates to old incidents.
“It could be an embarrassing record going back to when they were a teenager or, you know, something that’s not even relevant to their police work,” he said. “It’s an old record. It wouldn’t be a new record, because it’d be in the newspaper probably.”
Later, he added: “I think what we’re looking at is records that are very old, that are in the very distant past — and you know, should a person experience that embarrassment that this is raised later in their career?”
Some of the disclosures do relate to old incidents. For example, one disclosure says an Amherst police officer’s personnel file contains a sustained finding from 1999 that the officer testified untruthfully at the trial of a person accused of drunk driving. That officer was a potential witness in at least one criminal case in 2021, the disclosure records show.
However, a few of the disclosures do not indicate when the incidents took place. One says that a Leverett police officer faces charges in three criminal cases — two involving allegations of assault and battery on a household or family member and one involving a charge of threatening to commit a crime. The disclosure describes the cases as “open,” indicating they relate to recent allegations.
Of the dated reports, the majority of incidents occurred between 2015 and 2021. For example, one disclosure says a Bernardston police officer was arraigned on four charges of possession of child pornography in Greenfield District Court in May 2021, just a few months before the Dump made its January 2022 records request. Another says a Buckland officer was arraigned for the same charges at the same court on the same date.
Jacob Wrisley — a now-former officer at both the Bernardston and Buckland police departments — was arraigned on four child pornography charges at Greenfield District Court on the same date specified in the two disclosures, according to news reports. However, the redactions make it unclear whether the documents refer to Wrisley or other officers.
Other incidents, such as the ones involving the Leverett officer, do not appear to have been covered by the media.
“Equal Protection”
Sullivan said that his office does not provide special treatment to police officers.
“We just want to know, hey, under equal protection is the police officer protected the same as any other layperson?” he said.
However, the DA’s office does not consistently protect the identities of people who prosecutors charge with crimes. It maintains an online archive of press releases that contains the names of numerous defendants.
For example, six days after Sullivan appeared on the radio, his office published a press release about a physical therapist who was arraigned on criminal charges. The press release includes the man’s name, age, the town where he lives, and information about a previous conviction.
When Wrisley was arraigned on child pornography charges in 2021, the DA’s office published a press release that identified him by name — but it did not mention that he was a police officer at the time, instead calling him a “Millers Falls man.”
In January 2020, former Greenfield Police Sergeant James Rode was found guilty of motor vehicle homicide in Greenfield District Court, according to another press release. The facts described in the release are consistent with one of the disclosures, although the redactions make it unclear whether it refers to Rode or another officer.
Sullivan did not explain why his office is using tax dollars to fight releasing the names of accused officers even though his office regularly identifies defendants on its own initiative.
UPDATE (7/26/2023): The Dump filed an amended complaint that takes into account Sullivan’s comments during the WHMP interview. The updated complaint argues that Sullivan’s comments suggest that his office did not adequately search for the responsive records and asks the court to order his office to locate any additional documents.
I was quite surprised when, earlier this month, I was contacted by WHMP’s Talk The Talk and told that David Sullivan had spoken about my lawsuit on the program. Usually government officials decline to comment on pending litigation — but Sullivan talked about my case for around eight minutes. You can listen to that here:
I was also surprised by how much misinformation Sullivan managed to cram into those eight minutes. Thankfully, I was asked to appear on Talk The Talk and was able to set the record straight. You can listen my appearance here:
As I reported last week, I’m now also suing the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office for withholding Brady disclosure records. Thanks to Chris Rhatigan of Patch and Eli Sherman of WPRI for writing about this lawsuit.
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