Susan C. Nichols v. Mark H. Bennett

JANINE P. GESKE, J. This is a review of a published decision of the court of appeals which reversed the circuit courts order denying an open records petition for mandamus filed pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 19.37(1)(a) (1991-92). The sole issue is whether open records requests made to a district attorney and the district attorneys responses to those requests are exempt from public inspection under State ex rel. Richards v. Foust, 165 Wis. 2d 429, 477 N.W.2d 608 (1991), because they are contained in prosecutorial files. We conclude that the requested records are subject to inspection and copying under the open records law. Although the district attorney placed these records into prosecutorial files, it is the nature of the documents and not their location which determines their status under §§ 19.31 to 19.37, the Wisconsin open records law. The court of appeals correctly held that these records do not qualify for the common law exemption described in Foust. We therefore affirm the court of appeals decision.