Court Rules That Confession Phone Call Was Public

An Ohio appellate court has ruled that a county prosecutor illegally withheld a logging tape of a telephone call that had been requested by a newspaper, and that the confession made during the call didn’t provide justification for keeping the call confidential. The incident and court decision demonstrates the complexity of situations that occur when fielding 911 calls, and state laws that attempt to provide some confidentiality of criminal records.  The original incident occurred in June 2012 when Butler County sheriff’s dispatcher Debra Rednour received a 911 call reporting an accidental injury and that someone was not breathing. The call ended abruptly, and Rednour called back the original number. There was no answer, so Rednour dialed the number again. According to police, Michael Ray answered the phone and told Rednour that he was a murderer and needed to be arrested. He provided several other details before deputies arrived to arrest him. He was later charged with murder, and last October a jury found him guilty. In the meantime, the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper requested a copy of the third “confession” telephone call, but county prosecutor Michael Gmoser refused, saying it was exempt from the state’s open records act, and was part of an on-going investigation. The newspaper then sued for release of the phone call, and yesterday the state’s 12th District Court of Appeals made its ruling. The court noted that Rednour made the first call-back to complete gathering medical information after the hang-up call—she did not know if a crime had been committed at that point. The third call was not investigative, Rednour testified during the lawsuit trial, and the court agreed. Rednour is, “neither trained in criminal investigation nor tasked with criminal investigative duties,” the court wrote. Significantly, the court also ruled that Rednour’s outbound telephone calls were legally 911 calls, and subject to the applicable state laws on release. Read more about the case here, and download (pdf) the court’s decision here. Update: In Feb. 2015 the Ohio Supreme Court upheld (pdf) the appellate court ruling.