Friday, December 11th, 2020
Court: Release some records
By Sydney Albert
COLUMBUS - The Ohio Supreme Court has ordered the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office and Mercer County Sheriff's Office to release certain records requested by the father of a former Fort Recovery teacher convicted of sexual battery.
Charles Summers had requested documents concerning the case of his son, Chris, a former Fort Recovery teacher who was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to eight counts of sexual battery in 2013. The charges involved a student at the school. A Darke County judge in October 2013 also sentenced him to an additional year in prison on a charge of sexual battery that occurred in that county involving the same victim.
The case of Charles A. Summers vs. Matthew Fox and Jeff Grey, originally filed in 2018, alleged county prosecutor Fox and sheriff Grey had refused to give copies of documents to Charles Summers because he was a "designee" of Chris Summers, a status Charles Summers has disputed.
In the decision issued by the Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday, justices ordered Fox and Grey to hand over certain records, though noted that some requested materials were either not subject to public records requests or that the requests made by Summers had already been settled in mediation.
The prosecutor's and sheriff's offices have been ordered to hand over video interviews conducted with the victim and other witnesses in Chris Summers' case, various audio recordings of interviews and phone calls, 10 letters sent to witnesses, copies of email chains, written statements from the victim, notes taken by detectives during interviews with witnesses and the victim and correspondence between the sheriff's and prosecutor's offices relating to the case, with some material redacted or exempted.
Charles Summers' request for personal notes made by Fox on Chris Summers's case was denied.
In the majority opinion, five court justices agreed that Charles Summers was not acting or had not been sufficiently proven by the officials to be acting as a designee of his son. The county was also found not to have sufficiently proven certain records were subject to exemption as they had argued or that Summers' records requests had been overly broad.
The county had also argued that certain materials had not needed to be handed over to Summers because it was presumed Summers had acquired the materials through records requests in Darke County. The justices in the majority opinion rejected that argument.
"Nothing in the text of the Public Records Act excuses a public office from its duty to supply records upon a showing that the requester has obtained the record from a third party. Thus, the fact that Charles may already have received some of the requested records from another source does not render his requests moot," the decision reads.
Justice Judith French wrote an opinion partially concurring and partially dissenting with the majority decision, an opinion shared by chief justice Maureen O'Connor.
French wrote that although she concurred with the majority's "disposition of the pending motions," she dissented on compelling the county to produce the requested records. Unlike the majority opinion, she believes Charles Summers was "acting as a designee of his incarcerated son."
Fox declined to comment until the officials had met with their counsel to "decide their next step."
