The state-subsidized agency that provides legal representation for indigent criminal defendants is suing the Massachusetts State Police, alleging repeated and widespread violations of the state’s Public Records Law.
In a lawsuit amended last week in Suffolk Superior Court, the Committee for Public Counsel Services requested that a judge order state police to “remedy its regular practice,” of violating the law.
The public defender’s office – which receives more than $300 million in state funding annually – is asking the state police, which receives more than $440 million annually, to foot the cost of the litigation should it prevail.
In either case, taxpayer money will go toward litigating disputes over information public defenders allege state police have routinely withheld, often despite orders from the state agency tasked with overseeing the law.
“(The Massachusetts State Police’s) failures here are not isolated events, and CPCS is not alone in confronting MSP’s regular practice of flouting the Public Records Law,” the public defenders wrote in their lawsuit.