Peter Jasper v. Cape & Islands District Attorney's Office (SPR 20202155)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records November 19, 2020 SPR20/2155 Tara Miltimore, Esq. Assistant District Attorney Office of the District Attorney Cape & Islands District 3231 Main Street P.O. Box 455 Barnstable, MA 02630 Dear Attorney Miltimore: I have received the petition of Peter Jasper appealing the response of the Office of the District Attorney Cape & Islands District (DAO) to a request for public records. G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). Specifically, Mr. Jasper requested: “all emails incoming and outgoing for only Superior Court cases for the months of June, July, August and September of 2010.” Please be aware that the request must reasonably describe the records sought. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(a)(i). In a 2019 case, the Superior Court found that under the Public Records Law “[t]he reasonable description requirement contemplates that a requesting party will identify documents or categories of documents with sufficient particularity that government employees will be able to understand exactly what they are looking for, and then make a prompt production.” See Jaideep Chawla v. Dep’t of Revenue, Suffolk. Sup. No. 1784CV02087, at 2 (January 23, 2019). The court further indicated “[r]equests for documents that are articulated with very broad language that calls upon non-lawyer administrative personnel to interpret the scope of what is sought, and then make fine judgments about what documents are and are not sufficiently ‘related’ to the category of materials requested, will not satisfy this statutory standard.” (emphasis in original). Accordingly, I find it is unclear which specific records Mr. Jasper seeks. Mr. Jasper may wish to modify and/or clarify his request in order to reasonably describe the requested records. 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

Tara Miltimore, Esq. SPR20/2155 Page 2 November 19, 2020 Sincerely, Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records cc: Peter Jasper