Police records

[colin160302]

I was recently issued a ticket from an officer with an anger management problem. I would like to know if I am allowed to obtain a copy of his service record to possibly use in my defence and if so how do I obtain this record?

 

[lwpat]

Personel records are not subject to the Freedon of Information Act. You can obtain copies of his other citations and contact the drivers to see if they also had a problem. I fail to see how this would provide any defense to the violation.

 

[CdwJava]

The availability of an officer's personnel record is limited by state law. I don't know of any state that would make this available to you on a whim. You would generally need to articulate some reasonable belief that there is a history of lying or falsification of reports, and then the court would be asked to look at the files to see if there is anything relevant to the matter. These are rarely approved by the court, and never allowed on a fishing expedition.

What do you think you are going to find in his personnel record that could possibly help you?

- Carl