Obtaining police bodycam footage through Act 22 and the Right to Know Request
If you’re trying to obtain footage of an interaction with a police officer, Pennsylvania law provides you with the right to demand footage and information in many circumstances. However, these rights are not unlimited. In this article, we’ll briefly discuss three avenues for pursuing footage from a police department, whether such footage be body-cam footage, motor vehicle recordings (MVR) or something else.
Accordingly, here are four ways to get access to footage from a police department.
1. What is Act 22?
In 2017, Pennsylvania passed “Act 22,” a statute that defines when citizens can get access to body-cam or MVR footage taken by a police department.
Act 22 allows you to petition your local police department for footage. Act 22 is relatively new and untried, and so it’s not entirely clear how Courts will apply the rules. Nonetheless, the statute allows you to petition the police for the footage. They can withhold the footage if they find that the footage or audio contains:
- Evidence in a criminal matter;
- Information pertaining to an investigation or a matter in which a criminal charge has been filed;
- Confidential information; or
- Victim information.
The police also have to affirm that a redaction of the footage or audio would not fix the problem.
If the police wrongly withhold the footage, you may appeal the decision to the Court of Common Pleas for their review. Act 22 provides a powerful way to get footage or audio—but police may still refuse to hand over footage in some circumstances and have to be taken to Court.
2. Right to Know Requests
Right to Know Requests (sometimes called RTK requests) allow you to petition a government agency for records or information. Right to Know requests do not require an agency to create a record or document, but only to produce one in their possession.
In PSP v. Grove, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania confirmed that a Right to Know request need not be submitted for any particular reason. In that case, a bystander saw something that the bystander considered strange and asked for the footage in a Right to Know request. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that the petition did not have to prove a “good reason” for wanting the footage.
However, the Right to Know law does allow police departments to refuse to hand over footage or documents that are part of an “ongoing criminal investigation.” This does not appear to include traffic tickets, (as in Grove), but is broadly used by police departments to claim they don’t have to hand over footage or documents in a matter where they are even remotely considering the possibility of future charges. A lot of Right to Know litigation surrounds this claim by police departments.
3. Discovery in Criminal Cases
If you’re involved in a criminal case, you have a right to discovery under the doctrines in the famous Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland. Under Brady rules, you have a right to any footage the officers took during your arrest or the investigation of your case. But a third party does not have any rights to this footage.
In other words, if you are the Defendant in a criminal case, you have a right to the footage, but if you have not yet been charged (or your charges have been dealt with already), you don’t have a right to the footage.
Appeals to the Commonwealth Court
If your Act 22 or Right to Know request is turned down, you have an ultimate right to appeal to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, one of our intermediate appellate courts. They will review the record below to help determine whether you have a right to footage that an officer or department refused to provide.
Conclusion
If you’re trying to get ahold of footage from a police department, call Cornerstone Law Firm for a consultation today. Our attorneys can walk you through your options and advise you of the best way to approach gathering the information. Call us today.