Knox sheriff's office slammed for ‘shameful’ record keeping system on ICE documents

A closely watched open records lawsuit has revealed the Knox County Sheriff’s Office has no centralized and easily searchable system to track documents related to its controversial participation in the 287(g) program. The partnership enlists local police agencies to enforce federal immigration law.

A judge on Monday pressed a sheriff's official about why the department has its system set up this way, which makes it nearly impossible to find documents without intensive and expensive searching.

Intentionally or not, the system effectively delays responses to open records requests, and makes them cost-prohibitive for individuals or organizations without significant financial resources.

No central filing cabinet, no hard drive

Knox County Chancellor John Weaver questioned Knox County Sheriff’s Office Chief Counsel Mike Ruble multiple times as Ruble defended the office’s system. Because the 287(g) contract is handled by different systems, records about the program aren’t housed in one place, he said.

“When you have contracts, when you have the PR side and you have the bed side of it (payments from ICE for keeping inmates), the answer is no. There’s not one, single place,” he said.

Weaver pushed and asked if there wasn’t a central filing cabinet or hard drive that housed it all.

“So, you’re saying the sheriff’s department has no way to surround everything pertaining to the IGSA (Intergovernmental Service Agreement) or ICE or the memorandum of understanding or the Marshall Services contract?” he asked.

“I don’t know how we would ever be able to get all public records in the same place,” Ruble replied.

“(There’s) no way, not without taking hours and hours,” he continued.

Later Weaver asked why a public record request was denied for being “too vague,” and asked if Meghan Conley — the University of Tennessee professor who filed the suit – had copied and pasted the lengthy open records language into her request if it would have made a difference.

The request, Ruble said, would be “consistent” and better worded, but it would still require searching and compiling, something the sheriff's office has said they don’t have to do for public records.

Weaver was not pleased. “Unless they just strike it rich on the first request, they’re out,” he said.

“Normally this is not a problem. We don’t have these kinds of issues because people (don’t) want us to sort and compile,” Ruble said. “Normally someone asks us for a record, we have a record and we give them a file. When someone says they want ‘all records’ or ‘I want anything that might relate to it’ or ‘I want you to compile documents or compile data’ it causes this kind of problem.”

Knox County Sheriff’s Office actions ‘shameful’

Deborah Fisher is the executive director of Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. She sat through Monday’s hearing and said the sheriff’s office lacks credibility.

“The sheriff’s office may not be skilled enough to know how to logically and reasonably look for its own records regarding particular programs, but the Public Records Act does not require any level of common sense or intelligence on behalf of the government entity, just that they follow the law and in good faith look for and retrieve relevant records,” she said.

“They have worn this woman out at just about every turn,” Fisher continued. “I think the clear answer she got was just no, no and no, regardless of how she tried. I heard nothing that makes me think the government entity even tried to be reasonable. It was shameful.”

More:Knox County renews controversial 287(g), an ICE partnership to detain immigrants

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kimberly Glenn declined to comment on the public records system while the hearing is underway.

While Sheriff Tom Spangler did not bring the 287(g) program to Knox County, he campaigned on keeping the program while also saying his administration would be transparent with the public. Earlier this year, he agreed to a one-year extension of the program.

The lawsuit

Conley filed the lawsuit after getting denied records related to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program that gives deputies federal authority to detain immigrants who entered the country without legal permission. She first requested the records in 2017.

More:Knox County blasts UT prof's sunshine lawsuit over sheriff's 287(g) deal with ICE

The lawsuit was filed under the state's Sunshine Law and claims roughly a dozen instances where the sheriff’s office failed to answer specific items from a number of records requests Conley filed.

At a hearing in June, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office argued they could continue to require payment for inspection of documents from an open records request, a policy that goes against state statute.

The county has said it is unable to release certain documents without redaction, due to state law, but redacting takes time and costs hundreds of dollars. Deputy Law Director Amanda Morse argued in June that Conley would not be charged for the inspection itself, but would be charged for redaction. Conley said she stopped asking for large numbers of documents to avoid this fee.

However, a state comptroller's report written in 2008 says charges can be assessed for the cost of making the copy and staff time after the custodian has spent at least one hour working on the request if the requester wants copies of the documents. If the requester wants only to inspect the documents, there is to be no charge.