Tips and strategies
PLAN FOR THE LONG HAUL: The new law has a different response times than other parts of FOIA: 60 working days instead of the usual 5 to 12 working days.
MAP OUT WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR: Are you interested in a case as a whole? Are you interested in finding trends involving a defendant, an arresting officer, a detective, a prosecutor, a defense attorney, or maybe another suspect? Each area of interest may require a different strategy for accessing what you want to see.
BE CLEAR ABOUT WHICH CASE YOU'RE INTERESTED IN: When possible, use exact names or dates. If a specific address is important, use that.
NARROW YOUR REQUEST WHEN POSSIBLE: If you don't need to see the whole file, ask for specific parts of it: interrogations, photos, witness statements, evidence, etc. You can go back for other parts later.
BE PATIENT: This is new to everyone. FOIA already encourages government and requesters to work together, asking for inactive criminal investigative records should be no different. Give a little when you can.
BUT BE PERSISTENT, TOO: Giving a little and working together does not mean you must accept unreasonable delays or unsupported procedures and interpretations. Push back when you need to.
REQUEST A COST ESTIMATE: Ask to be notified what the anticipated cost of your request will be. What work is being performed (searching, copying, reviewing), at what rate of pay and for how many hours? How many responsive records are there? Requests that are anticipated to cost more than $200 can be put on hold until the requester pays a deposit and confirms he/she wants the request to go forward.
BE PREPARED TO PAY: These are sometimes large files and requests will require a lot of time and personnel to go through them to find what must be released, what can be released, and what can't be released. Any fees charged must reflect the "actual cost" and must be "reasonable."
BUT BE PREPARED TO QUESTION THE CHARGES: FOIA encourages requesters and government to work together. Are the pay rates of those involved in the request reasonable? Is the number of hours that will be spent reasonable? Broker a deal that cuts the estimated cost down in exchange for a longer response time, allows rolling releases or a narrows of the request?
ASK FOR EXPLANATIONS: The statute says that records can be withheld if one of six enumerated harms would occur. That requires explanation. And speculative harm is not enough. If a dispute wound up in court, a judge would need to see that explanation to see whether it was applicable.