BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 2221 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 2221 (Block) As Amended August 6, 2012 Majority vote ----------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: |75-0 |(May 14, 2012) |SENATE: |36-0 |(August 13, | | | | | | |2012) | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Original Committee Reference: PUB. S. SUMMARY : Adds prosecutors and public defenders to the list of professionals whose firearm licenses and license applications are not fully required to be disclosed as public records under the California Public Records Act (PRA). The Senate amendments add clarifying language that the provisions of this bill are not intended to supercede amendments to existing law that were added by the Governor's Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 2012, which took effect July 3, 2012. EXISTING LAW : 1)States that public records are open to inspection at all times during the office hours of the state or local agency and every person has a right to inspect any public record, except as provided. Any reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be available for inspection by any person requesting the record after deletion of the portions that are exempted by law. 2)Declares legislative intent to assist members of the public and state and local agencies in identifying exemptions to the California PRA. It is the intent of the Legislature that, after January 1, 1999, each addition or amendment to a statute that exempts from disclosure any information contained in a public record shall be listed and described in this article pursuant to a bill authorized by a standing committee of the Legislature to be introduced during the first year of each session of the Legislature. The statutes listed in this article may operate to exempt certain records, or portions thereof, from disclosure. The statutes listed and described may not be inclusive of all exemptions. The listing of a statute in this article does not itself create an exemption. AB 2221 Page 2 Requesters of public records and public agencies are cautioned to review the applicable statute to determine the extent to which the statute, in light of the circumstances surrounding the request, exempts public records from disclosure. 3)Exempts from the disclosure requirements under the PRA records that are exempted or prohibited pursuant to federal or state law, including, but not limited to, provisions of the Evidence Code relating to privilege. 4)Exempts from the disclosure requirements under the PRA the home address and telephone number of peace officers, judges, court commissioners, and magistrates that are set forth in applications for licenses to carry firearms issued by the sheriff of a county or the chief or other head of a municipal police department. 5)Exempts from the disclosure requirements under the PRA the home address and telephone number of peace officers, judges, court commissioners, and magistrates that are set forth in licenses to carry firearms issued by the sheriff of a county or the chief or other head of a municipal police department. 6)Requires state and local law enforcement agencies, subject to restrictions provided in other provisions of law, to make public the current address of every individual arrested by the agency and the current address of the victim of a crime, where the requester declares under penalty of perjury that the request is made for a scholarly, journalistic, political, or governmental purpose, or that the request is made for investigation purposes by a licensed private investigator. However, the address of the victim of the following crimes shall remain confidential: assault with the intent to commit mayhem, rape, sodomy, or oral copulation, human trafficking, rape, unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under 18 years of age, rape of a spouse, penetration or rape by a foreign object, abduction for marriage or defilement, inveiglement or enticement of an unmarried minor female under 18 for prostitution, abduction or procurement by fraudulent inducement for prostitution, abduction to live in illicit relation, unlawful sexual intercourse where consent is procured by fear, sale of a person for immoral purpose, procurement of child under age 16 for lewd or lascivious acts, abduction of person under age 18 for prostitution, aggravated sexual assault of a child, willful harm or injury to a child, AB 2221 Page 3 corporal punishment or injury of child, willful infliction of corporal injury, incest, sodomy, lewd or lascivious acts, oral copulation, harmful matter sent with intent to seduce minor, contact of minor with intent to commit sexual offense, continual sexual abuse of a child, sexual intercourse or sodomy with a child 10 years of age or younger, forcible acts of sexual penetration, interference with the exercise of civil rights because of actual or perceived characteristics of the victim, hate crime, stalking, or annoying or molesting a child under 18. Address information obtained pursuant to this paragraph may not be used directly or indirectly, or furnished to another, to sell a product or service to any individual or group of individuals, and the requester shall execute a declaration to that effect under penalty of perjury. Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to prohibit or limit a scholarly, journalistic, political, or government use of address information obtained pursuant to this paragraph. 7)States that a victim has the right to prevent the disclosure of confidential information or records to the defendant, the defendant's attorney, or any other person acting on behalf of the defendant, which could be used to locate or harass the victim or the victim's family or which disclose confidential communications made in the course of medical or counseling treatment, or which are otherwise privileged or confidential by law. AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill added prosecutors and public defenders to the list of professionals whose firearm licenses and license applications are not fully required to be disclosed as public records under the California PRA. Specifically, this bill : 1)Added confidential information or records pertaining to crime victims, as provided in the Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008: Marsy's Law, Section 28 of Article I of the California Constitution, to the list of information not required to be disclosed as public records under the PRA. 2)Made other technical, non-substantive changes. FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs. AB 2221 Page 4 COMMENTS : According to the author, "Victims of crime deserve the utmost of protections from defendants or their cohorts who want to annoy, harass, intimidate or threaten victims. No one should be able to revictimize someone because of confusion in the law. AB 2221 will conform the PRA to our state constitutional protections that recognizes the special protections afforded crime victims. "Additionally, our prosecutors and public defenders, which are in the trenches every day of our criminal justice system deserve privacy protections as well when applying for a firearm license. No person with nefarious intentions should be able to obtain the identifying information, of prosecutors and public defenders, subjecting them and their families to unnecessary potential harm, just because they filled out an application for a firearm license. AB 2221 will extend the same protections that judges and police officers enjoy now to prosecutors and public defenders." Please see the policy committee analysis for a full discussion of this bill. Analysis Prepared by : Stella Choe / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744 FN: 0004538