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What investigation? N.J. court rules cops don’t even have to say if records exist

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file photo by Boyd Loving

By S.P. Sullivan | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on August 31, 2016 at 5:33 PM, updated September 01, 2016 at 8:15 AM

TRENTON — A state appeals court ruled on Wednesday that government officials don’t necessarily have to acknowledge the existence of a record when refusing to release it.

The three-judge panel sided with prosecutors in Bergen County, who responded to a request from a news organization by saying they could “neither confirm nor deny” they had documents related to a possible criminal case.

The court agreed that in some cases, even acknowledging a record exists can divulge sensitive information. The so-called Glomar response, originally invoked by the federal government in a matter of national security, has been finding its way into state courts in recent years, a trend free press advocates have called troubling.

At issue in Wednesday’s decision was a request made by the Community News, a weekly newspaper in northern New Jersey, for records held by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office regarding an individual who had been accused of sexual abuse but never criminally charged.

https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/08/prosecutors_can_neither_confirm_nor_deny_nj_court.html?utm_content=New%20Campaign&utm_campaign=Observer_NJ_Politics&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=New%20Jersey%20Politics#incart_river_home