Q: I attempted to view the arrest warrants issued for the month of May, I was told I could only see the warrants for which I could provide an address or date. The County clerks said that the warrants were public but could not be viewed all together because they were not filed that way. How are arrest warrants supposed to be made available? What can I do to gain access?
A: There is not necessarily a particular method through which arrest warrants must be made available. It sounds like the county is willing to make the warrants available as a public record under the Public Records Act but is claiming limitations in the way a particular warrant may be identified.
Note that it may be that arrest warrants are also considered judicial records to which a public right of access attaches, and they may therefore also be available from the court itself.
Court records are not subject to the Public Records Act (unless they are subsequently used or held by a non-judicial state or local agency, which may be the case here) but are subject to disclosure under California law and the state and federal constitutions.
Whether the administrative process may be more straightforward for obtaining records directly from the court would vary from court to court but may be worth exploring.
As a practical matter, since you note that the county has said they can access warrants by date, it is not clear why it could not process a request for warrants issued on each day in May.
Moreover, even if the county’s filing system some how prevented review of arrest warrants by date, it seems unlikely that no county agency has any kind of index or other record listing arrest warrants issued by date.
In other words, the agency’s response implies that the county has no way of knowing what arrest warrants were issued in a particular month, which seems extremely unlikely.
In pursuing your request, you may want to ask for records that would permit you or the agency to identify the relevant arrest warrants.
To this end, it may be useful to remind the county personnel that the Public Records Act requires agencies to assist members of the public in making focused and effective requests by assisting in the identification of records and information that are responsive to the purpose of the request and providing suggestions for overcoming any practical basis for denying access to the records or information sought. Gov’t Code § 6253.1:
(a) When a member of the public requests to inspect a public record or obtain a copy of a public record, the public agency, in order to assist the member of the public make a focused and effective request that reasonably describes an identifiable record or records, shall do all of the following, to the extent reasonable under the circumstances:
(1) Assist the member of the public to identify records and information that are responsive to the request or to the purpose of the request, if stated.
(2) Describe the information technology and physical location in which the records exist.
(3) Provide suggestions for overcoming any practical basis for denying access to the records or information sought.
(b) The requirements of paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) shall be deemed to have been satisfied if the public agency is unable to identify the requested information after making a reasonable effort to elicit additional clarifying information from the requester that will help identify the record or records.
(c) The requirements of subdivision (a) are in addition to any action required of a public agency by Section 6253.
(d) This section shall not apply to a request for public records if any of the following applies:
(1) The public agency makes available the requested records pursuant to Section 6253.
(2) The public agency determines that the request should be denied and bases that determination solely on an exemption listed in Section 6254.
In this case, one would think that these obligations would include assisting you in identifying arrest warrants issued during a given month — information that, even if it is not at clerks’ fingertips, must surely be documented in some way or another.
Holme Roberts & Owen LLP is general counsel for the First Amendment Coalition and responds to First Amendment Coalition hotline inquiries. In responding to these inquiries, we can give general information regarding open government and speech issues but cannot provide specific legal advice or representation.