Earlier this week, in a 5-2 decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court sided with the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey (CPANJ) in a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU) over whether the CPANJ is a public agency subject to records disclosure under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) and the common law right of access.
The ACLU argued that CPANJ should be subject to OPRA because it is a public agency as defined by the law since it is an instrumentality of county prosecutors acting in a hybrid role as “state actors” and “political subdivisions of the state,” and because CPANJ relies almost entirely on public resources to perform a governmental function. The ACLU further argued that CPANJ is also a public entity for purposes of the common law right of access, given its public role in formulating criminal justice policy and therefore should be required to provide records under the common law.
The Court rejected the ACLU’s argument and determined that the CPANJ is not a public agency, nor does it constitute a political subdivision as those terms are defined in the OPRA law. In light of this, the Court found that CPANJ is not subject to records disclosure under OPRA. Likewise, the Court found that the CPANJ does not constitute an entity upon which a common law right of access request for documents can be served.
Contact: Frank Marshall, Esq., Associate General Counsel, fmarshall@njlm.org, 609-695-3481, x137.