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PROVO — Brigham Young University officials plan to appeal a judge’s ruling last week that said BYU’s police department must obey Utah’s open records laws, a university spokesman confirmed Wednesday.
“We intend to appeal, and as the Court wrote in Tuesday’s ruling: ‘BYU has strong arguments worthy of appellate consideration,’” university spokesman Todd Hollingshead said in a statement.
The statement was in reference to a final 34-page ruling released Tuesday in 3rd District Court Tuesday related to a July 2016 lawsuit filed by The Salt Lake Tribune and former Tribune reporter Matthew Piper. The lawsuit was regarding BYU police department’s ability to be excluded from Utah’s Government Records Access and Management Act.
Judge Laura S. Scott released an initial ruling on Friday that said BYU’s police department was subject to Utah’s records request laws.
Tuesday's ruling further explained the court decision. Among other assertions in the ruling, Scott wrote that BYUPD is a “law enforcement agency” as defined by Utah law, and therefore should follow GRAMA standards as a government entity. It added that the state, through the Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training Division, “exclusively regulates BYUPD,” with the power to certify and discipline officers.
“The court is hard-pressed to understand how BYUPD can be an ‘entity of the state’ for purposes of enforcing the laws and yet not be part of the executive department for purposes of GRAMA,” Scott wrote.
The Tribune's case argued in part that BYU’s police force is a state-certified agency with officers who have the power to make arrests and investigate violations of the law, which should make the agency subject to Utah’s GRAMA law.
BYU made several arguments against its police department being considered a governmental entity and subject to GRAMA.
Among these, BYU said the department can’t be considered an entity subject to GRAMA requests because it is a “privately created, funded, managed, and operated police department within a private university,” according to court documents.
“The court recognizes that BYU has strong arguments worthy of appellate consideration. But for the reasons set forth above, the court concludes that when BYUPD is acting as a law enforcement agency and/or its officers are acting as law enforcement officers, it is a government entity subject to GRAMA,” Scott wrote at the conclusion of the ruling.
Hollingshead did not specify when BYU’s appeal to the 3rd District Court ruling will be filed.
