Overview:
A judge has ruled that the Northwestern district attorney's office must release withheld records of police officers accused of crimes and other misconduct, which were originally requested by independent journalist Andrew Quemere in January 2022. The judge concluded that the information is a public record and must be produced, and that the district attorney's office will also have to pay Quemere's legal fees. Quemere believes that the ruling has exposed holes in the Massachusetts Public Records Law, and that the public has a right to know if police officers have been charged with crimes.
The Northwestern district attorney’s office must release withheld records of police officers accused of crimes and other misconduct, a Suffolk Superior Court judge has ruled in a 2023 lawsuit filed by an independent journalist.
“After review and a hearing, the Court concludes that the information at issue is a public record and must be produced,” wrote Judge Julie E. Green in a Dec. 30 decision.
Framingham resident Andrew Quemere, who authors a Massachusetts newsletter called “The Mass Dump,” filed the lawsuit in June of 2023 after Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan’s office withheld the police misconduct records originally requested in January 2022.
Quemere said this week that he pursued the lawsuit to expose holes in the Massachusetts Public Records Law through a large public records request, and believes that Green’s decision has “done just that.”
While Quemere is pleased with Green’s decision, he said the judge should have ruled that Sullivan’s office acted in bad faith. He adds that the ruling is overshadowed by years of effort and “wasted” taxpayer dollars.
“The judge sided with us on every piece of redacted information we’re trying to get released,” Quemere said in an interview with the Gazette. “It’s just disappointing the (Northwestern) District Attorney’s Office put up such a fight and it’s taken more than three years and thousands in taxpayer dollars.”
In an email to the Gazette, Melissa Sippel, a spokesperson for the Northampton district attorney’s office, said, “We are pleased the Court found that we acted in good faith in attempting to prevent the unlawful disclosure of Criminal Offender Record Information (“CORI”).”
She said the district attorney will continue to review the decision to determine whether to pursue an appeal and cannot comment further at this time due to pending litigation.
The public records request that prompted Quemere’s lawsuit asked the DA’s office to release its “Brady list,” or Brady letters, and related records of police officers in Hampshire and Franklin counties charged with criminal offenses. Brady letters include police officers’ names, docket numbers associated with officer’s criminal cases and cases in which the officers were a potential witness.
Quemere received a slew of documents referring to more than 30 officers, but the information was blacked out. Sullivan’s office argued that the documents were exempted, protected under the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) law that aims to maintain privacy of unauthorized criminal records.
In response, Quemere filed three separate appeals to the records supervisor of the state’s Public Records Division, who deemed that the district attorney had not adequately shown that the information redacted was protected under CORI. The records supervisor asked the district attorney to release the documents unredacted.
According to court documents, Sullivan’s office gave the same rationale after each appeal and did not release the information after the first two appeals. For the third appeal, the district attorney contacted the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office to resolve the matter, but did not get a response back.
“I believe that the public has a right to know if police officers have been charged with crimes and I think it’s unfortunate that it took a lawsuit and thousands of dollars in taxpayer dollars,” Quemere said.
Quemere said he originally made the large public records request as one of his journalistic techniques. He said large swaths of government public records requests reveal information, and in this case unfairness, pertaining to the public record system.
According to The Mass Dump, in May of 2024, the Northwestern district attorney’s office released some of the requested documents after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in a separate case that the Bristol County district attorney’s office couldn’t conceal the names of officers in records related to a misconduct investigation of a fatal police shooting.
After the appeals fell through, Quemere filed the lawsuit. In addition to siding with Quemere to release the unredacted information, Green ruled that the Northwestern district attorney’s office will also have to pay Quemere’s legal fees.
In her ruling, Green said that Sullivan’s office did not act in bad faith as the lawsuit claimed. Quemere feels the redactions were a form of special treatment toward police officers, arguing that the information would have been provided for other defendants.
“They were literally arguing not only that they could withhold this information, but it was also a crime to release this information …,” Quemere said. “But then here they are, publishing the same information about other people.”
Green argued that hypothetically, if the district attorney provided the redacted information and it was later revealed in court, then it would have violated CORI since it reveals personal information. She concluded based on that example that the district attorney did not act in bad faith due to privacy reasons. “CORI protections serve important interests in safeguarding privacy and promoting rehabilitation of criminal defendants,” Green wrote.
As for the district attorney’s legal fees that were paid by taxpayers, Quemere said Sullivan’s office is represented by two attorneys from the Boston-based law firm Butters Brazilian. Invoices show that the firm had billed $17,000, as of November.
Sullivan’s office has 30 days from the Dec. 30 ruling to produce the original redacted information Quemere requested, or to appeal.
Quemere says the lawsuit shows the public is at a disadvantage regarding the public records law. Specifically, since the supervisor does not have more authority to enforce appeals, parties requesting records have to settle disagreements in court.
Quemere currently has another lawsuit against the Bristol County district attorney’s office for similar reasons dealing with the public records law.
“It kind of shows the flaws in the public records law, that an agency can violate the law and the only thing that can stop them is someone hunting down a lawyer and taking years to go through all this litigation,” he said.