Ruling says police can release transcript instead of 911 tape
By The Associated Press
03.29.02
PHOENIX — Authorities can release only a transcript of a 911 call instead of a tape to comply with Arizona's public-records law and protect the privacy of those on the tape, a state court ruled on March 26.
While there is a legal presumption in favor of disclosure, Arizona law permits that to be outweighed by privacy and other considerations, the Court of Appeals said.
"The real suffering of others has undeniable broadcast value — it must excite ... some voyeuristic element in our makeup," Judge Noel Fidel wrote in the ruling. "The purpose of broadcasting such moments is surely not, however, to inform our citizens what their government is up to."
The ruling, by a majority of a three-judge Court of Appeals panel, came on the Mesa Police Department's appeal of a trial judge's ruling that the city turn over an audio tape of a 911 call.
KTVK-TV, a property of A.H. Belo Corp., had requested both a police tape and transcript of a Feb. 29, 2000, call in which a babysitter called a 911 operator to report that a 16-month-old boy had fallen from his crib and needed medical help.
Mesa authorities turned over the transcript but withheld the tape, which recorded the babysitter talking to an operator and the boy's cries and whimpers. Mesa appealed when a trial judge ruled that the city also had to turn over the tape.
The new ruling follows a 1998 decision in which the Arizona Supreme Court, deciding a different TV station's request for teachers' birth dates, said that a government can deny a records request if privacy interests overcome the presumption for disclosure.
In the 911 tape ruling, the Court of Appeals said privacy interests can apply to records other than data or information.
It is hard to image a more fundamental concern, Fidel wrote, "than the desire to withhold from public display the recorded suffering of one's child."
A dissenting judge said the majority's ruling undermines the records law because it would allow government agencies to "shield every 911 tape from inspection if its release would be emotionally upsetting to someone involved in a call."
"But such a sweeping exemption would contravene the strong policy favoring open disclosure and access to public records," Judge Ann A. Scott Timmer wrote.
A lawyer for KTVK did not immediately return a call for comment.
The babysitter ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of a four-count indictment charging her with child abuse and attempted child abuse.
The case is A.H. Belo Corp. vs. Mesa Police Department, 1 CA-CV 00-0200.