The Northern California chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists has given out their annual James Madison Award in the Advocacy category to the legal team that filed a class action suit against the Oakland Police Department over thousands of backed-up public records requests. Journalists Scott Morris, Brian Krans and Sarah Belle Lin, and Oakland Privacy filed the suit on behalf of all requesters and the legal team secured a settlement that required the processing of all requests, including some backed up for almost a decade or more, within the next two years.
SPJ’s Award committee stated: Representing journalists facing burdensome wait times for public records, this legal team compelled the Oakland Police Department to reform their public records process to reduce delays and make records promptly available. On behalf of journalists Scott Morris, Sarah Belle Lin, and Brian Krans – plus citizens’ coalition Oakland Privacy and its director of research, Michael Katz-Lacabe – the team successfully sued OPD in a class action lawsuit, forcing the department to clear its backlog of public records requests and ensure timely responses going forward. The coalition’s persistence has had immediately tangible results: since the lawsuit was filed in 2020, OPD has cleared over 4,000 outstanding records requests.
Last year, Oakland Privacy’s lawsuit against the City of Vallejo after the secret acquisition of a cell site simulator won the Madison Award in the citizen activism category.