A judge ruled Monday that the New York State Police (NYSP) must disclose the names of officers it redacted from two decades of misconduct complaints sought by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).
Albany County Supreme Court Judge Julian Schriebman held that the NYSP couldn't apply a blanket privacy exemption to redact officers' names from a spreadsheet of misconduct investigations. The NYCLU won a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2023 for NYSP misconduct records spanning from 2000 to 2020, but the department insisted on redacting officers' names, claiming that publishing the names of officers who were accused and cleared of wrongdoing would be an invasion of personal privacy.
Schriebman ruled that the department lacked a reasonable basis under New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) for the blanket denial and ordered the NYSP to produce the unredacted records within 90 days, as well as pay attorney fees and costs to the NYCLU.
