The Courthouse News Service recently reported on the Connecticut Appellate Court’s decision that reporters covering a casino suicide are not entitled to National Crime Information Center (NCIC) printout (“rap sheet”) access.
Two reporters covering the death of a man who jumped from a parking garage at Foxwoods Casino in Ledyard requested his NCIC rap sheet from the Department of Public Safety (DPS) (now the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection). NCIC is a computerized criminal history database maintained by the FBI and accessible to DPS through the National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact. When DPS refused to provide the information, the reporters appealed to the Freedom of Information Commission. The commission found that the reporters were entitled to the rap sheet under the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act.
On appeal, the trial court upheld the commission’s decision, but the Connecticut Appellate Court reversed it on August 13th. It found that, under the compact, NCIC information may only be used for “limited purposes authorized by law” and noted that the state may lose NCIC database access if it allows unauthorized database disclosures.
