Haynie

The premise of the California Public Records Act (Gov. Code, § 6250 et seq.; hereafter CPRA) is that “access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state.” (§ 6250.) To implement that right, the act declares that “[p]ublic records are open to inspection.” (§ 6253.) At the same time, the act recognizes that certain records should not, for reasons of privacy, safety, and efficient governmental operation, be made public. Section 6254, in the course of 26 separate subdivisions, sets forth many of those exceptions. In this case, we are asked to construe subdivision (f) of section 6254 (section 6254(f)) and apply that construction to certain records of a law enforcement agency.

The trial court denied petitioner Elgin Haynie’s request that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department be ordered to produce records Haynie considered relevant to an incident in which he was detained by sheriff’s deputies: The records in question concern a citizen’s call to report a possible crime and the department’s response thereto. After the court denied Haynie’s request, he filed a petition for writ of mandate…