Bill Text: NJ S2744 | 2020-2021 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Requires municipal police departments maintain copies of complaint-summonses filed with Judiciary as government records.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2020-07-28 - Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Law and Public Safety Committee [S2744 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2020-S2744-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Senator LORETTA WEINBERG
District 37 (Bergen)
SYNOPSIS
Requires municipal police departments maintain copies of complaint-summonses filed with Judiciary as government records.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act requiring municipal police departments to maintain copies of certain public records and supplementing P.L.1963, c.73.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. Every municipal police department and force established pursuant to the provisions of N.J.S.40A:14-118 shall maintain copies of all complaints electronically filed by a police officer of the department and force with the Judiciary pursuant to Rules of the Court. These copies shall be considered a public or government record pursuant to P.L.1963, c.73 (C. 47:1A-1 et seq.) and P.L.2001, c.404 (C.47:1A-5 et al.) and shall be provided upon request by the police department or force.
2. This act shall take effect on the first day of the fourth month next following enactment.
STATEMENT
This bill requires police departments to maintain copies of criminal complaints electronically filed by police officers with the Judiciary. The bill provides that these complaints are to be considered public or government records under the State's Open Public Records Act (OPRA).
Under current law, Rules of Court and Attorney General guidelines govern the filing of complaints by police officers against criminal defendants. The arresting police officer inputs the required information on an electronic form developed by the Administrative Office of the Courts. The completed form is entered into the Judiciary's case management system and a judicial officer determines the type of complaint-summons that is to be generated. The municipal police department has access to the case management system, but the Judiciary is responsible for maintaining the record. Based on this arrangement, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey held in the recent case of Simmons v. Mercado, 2020 N.J. Super. LEXIS 125, that requests for these records are to be submitted to the Judiciary; municipal police departments should not be burdened with producing records when those records are maintained by the Judiciary.
This bill reverses the holding in Simmons v. Mercado by requiring municipal police departments to maintain copies of these records and, by clarifying that these are public records under OPRA, requiring the municipal police departments to produce these records upon request.
