Missouri Press Association
Serving Missouri Newspapers Since 1867
Here’s the holiday gift you can get your hotline attorney: Everyone please make a request to the Missouri State Highway Patrol for records. I am actively gathering as many examples of denied or redacted responses as possible. I’m picky about gifts, so I have several specific things I want in your request.
When you make your MSHP request, you will likely be routed to MSHP’s online Public Records Request portal. But I want you to make your request via fax as well as the portal. Here’s why. That portal will ask requestors to check one of 13 boxes stating various exemptions offered under the Drivers Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) for obtaining unredacted personal information protected by that law. Here’s the issue: The MSHP’s portal does not offer a 14th exemption stated in the DPPA: “(14) For any other use specifically authorized under the law of the State that holds the record, if such use is related to the operation of a motor vehicle or public safety.”
That’s why I think it is best to fax your request as well. When you fax in your MSHP request, explain that you are a member of the media covering public safety and specifically exempted under the DPPA exemption 14. Also mention that your request is specifically authorized by Missouri law, RSMo Section 32.091.6, which provides that confidentiality provisions on DMV information should not “limit media access to any personal information when such access is provided by agencies or entities in the interest of public safety and is otherwise authorized by law.”
If your paper has happened to have submitted the Missouri Department of Revenue’s Form 4678, “Request for DPPA Security Access Code” and obtained a certificate, also include this information in your request.
And when you fax in that request, also request that the MSHP put the names back into their online crash reports.
The bow on top would be if your request was for particularly newsy information that gets denied or redacted.
Please save your fax receipt confirmation, and then let me know what kind of responses you get. It will be important as we move forward challenging the removal of names from the online crash reports.
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You may recall that the Missouri Supreme Court accepted an appeal from the case Weeks v. City of St. Louis No. ED112624 (Mo.App.E.D. January 28, 2025), in which the Court of Appeals held that the city did not have to turn over a database because it would have had to convert the database into a different file type than the one the requestor asked for. The Missouri Press Association had submitted an amicus brief arguing that the Sunshine Law placed no burden on the requestor to properly identify the electronic file held by the public entity.
Earlier this November, the Supreme Court of Missouri issued a decision that affirmed the lower court’s ruling that the plaintiff, Phillip Weeks, failed to demonstrate the city withheld records in violation of the state’s Sunshine Law. The Supreme Court’s decision was based on a procedural technicality: It held that Weeks failed to properly apply the required analytical framework for an “against-the-weight-of-the-evidence” challenge to the trial court’s findings. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court avoided taking up the legal challenge raised by the MPA.
My take-away is this: The Missouri Supreme Court missed an opportunity to reinforce that the Sunshine Law language calling for open records is to be interpreted expansively, not reductively. Provisions in the law – such as the one permitting a requestor to specify a file format – should not be used as a basis to deny a request. Until we get another challenge teed up for the Missouri Supreme Court, take care to state overtly in your records request that you will accept the record in whatever format the City maintains the file if your preferred option is unavailable.
