COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled police agencies can conceal officers’ identities under a law intended to provide protections for crime victims, WOSU reported.
The court sided with the city of Columbus over the Columbus Dispatch, which sued in 2024 to compel the release of the names of eight officers involved in a robbery response that led to a shootout, according to the report. The Ohio Supreme Court case focused on two officers involved in the shootout.
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The incident unfolded when one officer was shot by a bank robbery suspect. Other officers responded by fatally shooting the suspect, according to the report.
Marsy’s Law was a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2017 to give broad privacy protections for victims of crimes.
In Justice Patrick DeWine’s majority opinion, he wrote that, by the definition provided in Marsy’s Law, the officers were victims of crimes.
“This is a case in which the text is clear and determinative with respect to police officers. They easily fall within (Marsy’s Law’s) scope,” DeWine wrote. “In other words, because police officers are persons against whom crimes can be committed, they can be victims.”
DeWine’s opinion addressed concerns about public information requests.
“Even if we were to conclude that the Constitution provides some generalized right to obtain public records, we would be hard pressed to say that this generalized right prevails over the more specific guarantee of crime-victim privacy rights established by Marsy’s Law’s constitutional protection,” DeWine wrote.
The Florida Supreme Court came to the opposite conclusion in a 2024 case, ruling that officers’ identities should not be shielded by the state’s Marsy’s Law.
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