Andrew Quemere v. Hampden County District Attorney's Office (SPR 20202142)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records November 10, 2020 SPR20/2142 Joseph A. Pieropan, Esq. Records Access Officer Hampden County District Attorney's Office 50 State Street Springfield, MA 01102-0559 Dear Attorney Pieropan: I have received your petition on behalf of the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office (Office) seeking an extension of time to produce records. G. L. c. 66, § 10(c). As required by law, it is my understanding that the Office furnished a copy of this petition to the requestor. Id. In a letter dated September 11, 2020, Andrew Quemere requested: • All letters, emails, and other documentation from law enforcement agencies and correctional institutions advising your office of Brady/Giglio information. "Brady/Giglio information" refers to information regarding credibility problems or other issues with a law enforcement/correctional officer that might need to be disclosed to a criminal defendant. You can limit your search to the years 2009 to 2020. • All letters, emails, and other documentation sent by your office to criminal defendants or their counsel disclosing Brady/Giglio information. You can limit your search to the years 2009 to 2020. Petition for an Extension of Time Under the Public Records Law, upon a showing of good cause, the Supervisor of Records (Supervisor) may grant a single extension to an agency not to exceed 20 business days and a single extension to a municipality not to exceed 30 business days. In determining whether there has been a showing of good cause, the Supervisor shall consider, but shall not be limited to considering: (i) the need to search for, collect, segregate or examine records; (ii) the scope of redaction required to prevent unlawful disclosure; (iii) the capacity or the normal business hours of operation of the agency or municipality to produce the request without the extension; One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 • (617) 727-2832• Fax: (617) 727-5914 sec.state.ma.us/pre • pre@sec.state.ma.us

Joseph A. Pieropan SPR20/2142 Page 2 November 10, 2020 (iv) efforts undertaken by the agency or municipality in fulfilling the current request and previous requests; (v) whether the request, either individually or as part of a series of requests from the same requestor, is frivolous or intended to harass or intimidate the agency or municipality; and (vi) the public interest served by expeditious disclosure. G. L. c. 66, § 10(c). Current Petition In its petition dated November 4, 2020, the Office seeks “an extension of time of an additional 10 business days, through and including November 19, 2020, to provide records in response to the above-captioned public records request.” The Office notes, “[t]he Records Access Officer’s request for an extension of time in this matter is a consequence of this Office’s obligation to respond to three separate public records requests filed by Andrew Quemere in a five-week period that has resulted in three appeal determinations by the Supervisor of Records. Additional time is required to reply to this specific appeal - SPR20-1929 - because the scope of this request is broad and, as the following chronology shows, this Office’s limited resources are simultaneously responding to another appeal filed by Mr. Quemere.” The Office further notes, “[a]t this time this Office is consulting with its IT Director to determine whether documents in PDF format can be reformatted into machine-readable text. A preliminary answer from the IT Director indicates that, at a minimum, and if possible, documents will have to be rescanned into readable form.” Conclusion I find that in light of the capacity of the Office to produce the request without the extension, and the efforts undertaken by the Office in fulfilling the request, the Office has established good cause to permit an extension of time. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(c)(i)-(iv). I hereby grant the Office an extension of 10 business days to furnish copies of records responsive to Mr. Quemere’s request. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(c). The Office is advised it must provide the records in a manner consistent with the Public Records Law and its Access Regulations. To the extent possible, the Office must provide responsive records on a rolling basis. Andrew Quemere may seek judicial review of this decision by commencing a civil action in the appropriate superior court. See G. L. c. 66, §§ 10(c), 10A(c).

Joseph A. Pieropan SPR20/2142 Page 3 November 10, 2020 Sincerely, Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records cc: Andrew Quemere