The Collin County Sheriff’s Office refused to release information to the public — leading to a lengthy legal battle involving the Texas Attorney General.
Editor’s note: After reports that Collin County Constable Joe Wright’s name had appeared on a membership list for an antigovernment extremist group, KERA government accountability reporter Caroline Love wanted to find out more about him. She obtained records from the Collin County Sheriff’s Office — where Wright had once worked — only after a lengthy open records battle. We asked her to find out if her experiences are symptomatic of a bigger problem.
Texas citizens and journalists often face drawn-out legal battles over open records requests. Advocates for transparency in government say that’s playing out all over Texas.
Government officials often demand that open records requests be filed for information that is clearly public — even when the same information has been requested and released before. Similarly, they may seek to block the release of documents by asking the Texas Attorney General’s Office to issue an opinion on what can be released. Even when the AG’s office rules that the requested information can be released, it can take months for that to happen.
Daxton “Chip” Stewart is a media law professor at Texas Christian University. He says government entities in Texas have become increasingly more hostile toward public records requests and employ tactics that are designed to keep hidden public information that has been paid for with taxpayer dollars. And some governments hire private attorneys — also paid with taxpayer dollars — to fight open records requests filed by private citizens and journalists.
The goal, he said, is to drag out the process so that the person making the request gives up.
“It discourages citizens and journalists from making requests like this because they know it’s going to be a long and painful process and may result in nothing good happening,” Stewart said.
KERA contacted Stewart about an open records request seeking personnel and disciplinary records for a Collin County constable who was identified as a member of the Oath Keepers, which has been identified as an antigovernment extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League. That set off a lengthy battle that involved the Collin County Sheriff’s Office — where the constable had worked as a deputy — and the AG’s office. The sheriff’s office ultimately was instructed to release the requested documents after personal information such as Social Security numbers and medical information was redacted.
Stewart said he’s been involved in many legal battles over public records requests that involved the AG’s office and said that what happened with KERA’s request is not unusual.
“I’d say the main thing that’s not typical is the attorney general actually found in favor of you,” he said to KERA.
KERA contacted the Collin County Sheriff’s Office seeking comment about what happened with the request. Jessica Sayre, a public information officer with the Sheriff’s Office, wrote in an email she didn’t anticipate having any additional comment on the story. She also defended the use of hiring a private attorney.
“It is not uncommon for us to utilize an attorney when working with the [Attorney General’s Office],” Sayre wrote. “Some law enforcement agencies have employees dedicated to open records processes versus an attorney.”
The first round
KERA wanted to find out more about Collin County Constable Joe Wright after his name was listed in a report from the Anti-Defamation League as a member of the Oath Keepers, the extremist organization known for its involvement in the January Sixth attack on the U.S. Capitol.
That was in early September. At the time, Wright said in a statement to KERA that he thought the group was inviting him to re-affirm his commitment to his oath of office if elected.
“I believed the Oath Keepers existed only to encourage elected officials to honor their oath of office, follow the law and to uphold the Texas and U.S. Constitution,” he wrote in the statement.
Wright had previously worked for the Collin County Sheriff’s Office, a constable in Harris County and for the King County Sheriff Office in Washington. KERA filed open records requests on Sept. 9 with each of those law enforcement agencies seeking copies of Wright’s personnel records.
The Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office, where Wright was employed as a sergeant from 1987-2000, sent Wright’s file ten days after the request. And within a month, the King County Sheriff’s Office also sent Wright’s files from when he was a sheriff’s deputy from 2000 to 2008.
But the Collin County Sheriff’s Office didn’t want to release anything.
A very real threat?
A private attorney working on the sheriff’s behalf tried to get the Texas State Attorney General’s Office to issue an opinion supporting that position. Government entities can file a “request for an attorney general opinion” seeking guidance on what information is releasable under the Texas Public Information Act.
Media law experts say that also can be a way to delay the release of public information. And the news that prompted open records request may be dated by the time the information is obtained. Private citizens, as well as journalists, may simply give up.
The attorney argued in the request for an Attorney General opinion that releasing any portion of Wright’s personnel file would put the constable’s physical safety at risk.
“The ongoing and very real threat to law enforcement officer’s personal safety is beyond cavil,” the attorney wrote. “There have been a … rash of police officer ambushes occurring across the country and in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.”
The attorney cited social media posts about the in-custody death at the Collin County Jail as an example. Wright was not involved in that incident.
KERA also sent a letter to the AG’s office, asserting that requests for such records are routine in Texas. KERA said it did not seek private information that is not releasable and that releasing records on Wright’s performance as a law enforcement officer was in the public’s interest — especially because it concerned an elected official.
The request for an opinion was dated on Sep. 16. The Attorney General’s office issued its opinion on the request at the end of November. The office ruled that while certain elements of Wright’s file could be withheld — including his social security number, TCOLE identification number and the results of his psychological examination — the rest of the file could be released. The sheriff office’s argument that doing so would put Wright’s personal safety at risk, the office said, wasn’t sufficiently proven.
Stewart said that the assumption should be all records are public, and it’s on the state to prove it if they’re not.
“The presumption is all records are open and they belong to citizens,” he said. “Because we are taxpayers, we pay for them.”
KERA received notice of the Attorney General’s opinion in early December. The attorney wrote in the email that KERA could pick up a printed copy of the 204 releasable pages for a fee of $20.40 at the Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff’s Office said it only accepted check or exact change, no credit card, when asked. King County and Harris County sent PDFs of their records to KERA without charge.
The reveal
Appearing on the Oath Keepers list of members turned out to be much more interesting than anything contained in Wright’s personnel files.
Wright was reprimanded three times in his four-year career as a Collin County Sheriff’s deputy, including once in 2012 for being late to work. According to the documents, he admitted during a background check that he had smoked marijuana once in his youth.
The records from Harris County and King County were similar. Wright was reprimanded in Harris County for turning in some paperwork late and for being late to work in 1996. A citizen in King County complained Wright was speeding in his patrol vehicle in 2004.
There was also an internal affairs investigation of Wright in King County in 2008 after he was alleged to have made an error in a report. There was some confusion about no contact orders in a domestic violence case. The investigation found Wright didn’t intentionally make the error.
Got a tip? Email Caroline Love at clove@kera.org.
Caroline Love is a Report For America corps member for KERA News.
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