Vermont State Police traffic tickets are public records, commissioner rules

Traffic tickets are public records from the time Vermont State Police troopers issue them, even if they contain the name of the juvenile, the state's public safety commissioner has ruled.

The determination by Commissioner Thomas Anderson overturned attempts by the state police, which he oversees, to keep a ticket secret.

"A civil ticket is a written record of the Vermont State Police, a division of DPS, produced or acquired in the course of agency business," Anderson wrote in a two-page decision issued Thursday. "The civil ticket, therefore, meets the definition of a public record."

The matter arose from a traffic stop Aug. 7 on Interstate 91 in Dummerston when a car sped past an unmarked state police vehicle at more than 100 mph, according to a statement that day from Capt. Dan Trudeau.

Trudeau's one-paragraph account provided some details of the incident and noted that the driver received a juvenile criminal citation on suspicion of negligent operation and excessive speed, and also a civil ticket for driving without a license. The statement omitted additional information that regularly appears in state police news releases, such as the make and model of a vehicle and the hometown of the driver.

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The release also excluded the driver's identity, which had to be omitted because he was 16 years old, Trudeau said. The Windham County state's attorney was reviewing the case, the captain added, to determine whether the boy should face charges as an adult.

Freelance Vermont journalist Mike Donoghue, a former longtime employee of the Burlington Free Press, responded to Trudeau's email and asked for a copy of the civil ticket, according to records of the exchange.

Several hours later, Donoghue received a reply from Lt. David Petersen, who said the state police would take until Aug. 24 to determine how to respond — an extension of the usual time allowed under Vermont's public records law.

Two weeks later, Heidi Storm, the state police's records administrator, wrote to deny the request.

"The records you seek are part of an ongoing criminal investigation and cannot be released at this time," Storm wrote. "Releasing the civil ticket could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy as it undermines the confidential nature of proceedings in family court."

Donoghue filed an appeal with Anderson, who overturned the denial a week later.

Anderson, a former U.S. attorney for Vermont, wrote that he determined no exemptions in the Public Records Act applied to the civil ticket, such as those involving ongoing investigations or a subject's age. And though criminal proceedings in Family Court are secret by law, a civil ticket falls outside the court's jurisdiction.

The ticket, which carries a penalty of two points on a driver's license and a $162 fine, was issued to Ethan A. Anderson, 16, of Chester. There is no indication of a connection between the teenager and the public safety commissioner.

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Thomas Anderson's decision follows precedent from a notable 1990 Vermont Supreme Court government-transparency case. Justices ruled that citations ordering adults to appear in court must be made public and could not be withheld under the exemption related to ongoing criminal investigations.

"We find that arrest records are not records dealing with the detection and investigation of crime but instead are the products of crime detection," the justices ruled in lawsuit by the Caledonian-Record newspaper against the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety and the town of St. Johnsbury.

Contact Adam Silverman at 802-660-1854 or asilverman@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @wej12.