Police can't require fees for editing body cam videos, California Supreme Court says

The California Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that public agencies cannot require fees for redacting police body camera video before releasing it under a public records request.

In a unanimous decision, the state's highest court ruled that agencies cannot charge these fees to simply redact images in video footage, such as blurring a bystander's face. In a concurring opinion by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, he wrote that these editing costs could stand in the way of the California Public Records Act.

“Allowing government agencies to charge potentially steep sums for mere redactions that must be routinely performed by municipal employees for PRA requests - fees that could very well stand as a practical obstacle to the public's right of access - would hinder that purpose,” Cuéllar said.

The case involved the city of Hayward, which wanted to charge the National Lawyer's Guild $3,000 to redact six hours of body camera video of a December 2014 Black Lives Matter protest in Berkeley. The Hayward Police Department was providing mutual aid in Berkeley.

The demonstrations erupted after grand jury decisions not to indict police officers involved in the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Both were unarmed African-American men.

Thursday's Supreme Court ruling overturned a First District Court of Appeal decision that allowed Hayward to require fees for the video redactions.

Hayward said its employees spent about 40 hours editing the video footage, and the city argued that requests for body camera video present unique concerns for government agencies with limited resources.

Justice Leondra Kruger, who wrote the court's 30-page decision, said the court doesn't doubt the city's concerns. But she said whether the unique burdens related to producing body camera video “warrant special funding mechanisms” is something the state legislature can decide.

Hayward argued that shifting costs to requesters would improve public access to electronic records, including giving the agency the ability to release the video more quickly. Kruger said the court was not convinced that shifting redaction costs is the right way to secure access to public information.

“Redaction costs could well prove prohibitively expensive for some requesters, barring them from accessing records altogether,” Kruger wrote in the decision. “Even if higher costs to the agency mean slower disclosure rates or greater inconvenience to the requester, these burdens on access are insignificant if the alternative is no access at all.”

The Bay Area-based First Amendment Coalition said the court's decision to stop these fees is great for government transparency and accountability.

“It will prevent government from erecting significant cost barriers to public access, thus ensuring the public gets the information they're entitled to under California law,” David Snyder, the coalition's executive director, said in a written statement.