Townsend v. Cuyahoga Cty. Pros.

Citations

• 2019 Ohio 4604

Syllabus

Inmate requester made a request to the clerk of courts for public records pertaining to various criminal investigations. The special master found that requester failed to show he actually delivered his request to the named defendants: the county prosecutor and a common pleas judge. The special master further found that requester had not complied with the procedure in R.C. 149.43(B)(8) for inmates seeking law enforcement investigatory records, and the prosecutor thus had no duty to produce the records even had the request been made to him. The special master further found that the court of claims lacked jurisdiction to enforce a request made to a common pleas court for case records even had the request been made to the judge. Sup.R. 44-47. The special master further found that these state respondents had no duty to respond to one of the requests that was based solely on the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).