When a North Carolina citizen review board reviews a police disciplinary case, can the city release the officer's prior misconduct records and the underlying facts to the board and to the complainant?

Plain-English summary

Robert Sink asked the AG to interpret a local Act that established a Citizen Review Board (CRB) for police disciplinary processes, in the context of Charlotte/Mecklenburg. The local Act authorized the City Manager or Chief of Police to provide information about an officer's disciplinary charges to the CRB and to the aggrieved person when doing so would "facilitate citizen review of the police disciplinary process." Sink had three specific questions about how broadly that authority reaches.

Senior Deputy AG Reginald Watkins and Assistant AG Daniel Addison answered each in turn, with a clear distinction between what may go to the CRB and what may go to the aggrieved person.

Important threshold observation. The Act does not require disclosure. It permits the City Manager or Chief of Police to disclose, when they determine that doing so will facilitate citizen review. The AG analogized this to other North Carolina statutes (G.S. §§ 126-24, 115C-321, 115D-29, 153A-98(c)(7), 160A-168(c)(7)) that allow public officials to release otherwise confidential personnel information upon a finding that disclosure is essential to maintaining the integrity of the agency or the quality of its services. The decision to release rests with the official; the AG was addressing only what the official is legally permitted to do.

Disclosure to the CRB. The Act permits the City Manager or Police Chief to disclose to the CRB:

• The disposition of the current disciplinary charge.
• The dispositions of previous disciplinary charges, whether or not sustained, and whether or not relied upon in determining the current charge.
• The facts the Department relied upon in determining both the current and previous charges.

The AG reached this broad disclosure conclusion for two reasons. First, the Act's language refers to "disciplinary charges" in the plural without limiting to pending or sustained charges. Under Union Carbide Corp. v. Offerman, the plain and ordinary meaning of statutory text controls; the General Assembly's use of "disciplinary charges" contemplates information about more than one charge. Second, to evaluate whether the Police Chief abused discretion in disposing of the current charge, the CRB may need to assess whether the Chief should have considered the circumstances of previous charges. Withholding the previous-charge information from the CRB would defeat the Act's purpose.

Disclosure to the aggrieved person. The disclosure to the aggrieved person (or that person's survivor) is narrower:

• The disposition of the current charge is disclosable.
• The facts the Department relied upon in deciding the current charge are disclosable.
• Dispositions and facts of previous charges are disclosable only if the Police Chief relied upon them in deciding the current charge.

The reason for the narrower scope is statutory text. To be eligible to receive facts about a charge, a person must be the one "alleged to have been aggrieved by the officer's actions" or that person's survivor. If the person was aggrieved only by the officer's current alleged misconduct (not by previous conduct), the person was not "aggrieved" by previous incidents and is not eligible to receive their facts. The only exception is when the Chief relied upon previous-charge facts in deciding the current charge. In that case, the previous-charge facts have become part of the "facts relied upon" in the current disposition and follow the disclosure rule for that disposition.

Sustained vs. unsustained charges. The Act draws no distinction. If the disposition or facts are otherwise disclosable, the sustained/unsustained status does not change the analysis. A pattern of unsustained charges can be just as relevant to a citizen review evaluation as a pattern of sustained charges, and the General Assembly chose statutory language that did not limit the disclosure to sustained outcomes.

The practical takeaway in 2001: in a Citizen Review Board review of a single complaint, the CRB gets broad access to the officer's disciplinary history if the City Manager or Police Chief chooses to share it. The complainant gets a narrower window, focused on what actually drove the disposition of the complaint they filed. The mechanism puts significant discretion in the hands of the City Manager and Chief, who decide case-by-case whether releasing information will facilitate citizen review.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2001. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. North Carolina has updated personnel-file confidentiality statutes multiple times since 2001 (including S.L. 2007-508 opening parts of municipal personnel files), and individual citizen review boards have evolved or been replaced. Anyone evaluating current police-misconduct disclosure questions in North Carolina should consult current Chapter 160A and Chapter 126 statutes, current local acts governing their citizen review mechanism, and recent NC appellate decisions on police records access.

Background and statutory framework

Citizen review boards in North Carolina. A citizen review board provides civilian oversight of police discipline. The Charlotte/Mecklenburg CRB (the body addressed in this opinion) was established by local act of the General Assembly. CRBs typically review the Police Chief's disposition of misconduct complaints, recommending changes or finding that the Chief abused discretion. The CRB's authority depends entirely on its enabling act; without local-act authorization, North Carolina personnel-file law (§ 160A-168 for cities, § 153A-98 for counties) would generally shield disciplinary records from disclosure even to a complainant.

The Act's permissive disclosure design. The local Act for Charlotte/Mecklenburg created a mechanism rather than a mandate. It told the City Manager and Police Chief: you may release personnel information when you decide doing so will facilitate citizen review. That design tracks the broader North Carolina personnel-confidentiality framework, which allows public officials to release otherwise confidential personnel information when essential to agency integrity. The Charlotte/Mecklenburg Act added the CRB-facilitating purpose to the standard release-on-determination pattern.

The Union Carbide plain-meaning canon. Union Carbide Corp. v. Offerman (2000) restated the standard canon: where statutory language is clear and unambiguous in context, courts give it its plain and ordinary meaning. The AG used this canon to read "disciplinary charges" broadly. The General Assembly could have written "the current disciplinary charge" if it meant to limit disclosure to pending matters. It used the plural, leaving room for historical disclosure.

Why the CRB needs broad information. Citizen review of police discipline is meaningful only if the CRB sees what the Police Chief saw. If the Chief considered (or should have considered) an officer's prior conduct in deciding the current case, the CRB needs that history to evaluate the Chief's reasoning. A narrow disclosure rule that limited the CRB to the four corners of the current complaint would handicap the review. The AG's broad CRB-disclosure reading aligned the Act with its evident purpose.

Why the aggrieved person gets less. Personnel-file confidentiality is the default in North Carolina, and statutory exceptions are read narrowly. The aggrieved person's interest in the current incident is concrete (they were allegedly harmed by it). Their interest in past incidents involving other people is weaker; those people are the aggrieved parties for the prior incidents. A bright-line rule limiting aggrieved-person disclosure to facts they were aggrieved by (current incident, plus prior incidents that informed the current disposition) preserves the privacy of unrelated complainants while still letting the current complainant evaluate the Chief's reasoning.

The discretion-and-judgment framework. Discretion sits with the City Manager and Chief, but it is bounded discretion. They must determine that disclosure will "facilitate citizen review of the police disciplinary process." A pretextual disclosure unrelated to citizen review would not satisfy the statutory trigger. And the official's discretion does not include the power to disclose more than the Act permits: the broad CRB rule and narrower aggrieved-person rule set the outer limits.

Comparison to the parallel personnel statutes. Section 126-24 (state personnel), § 115C-321 (school personnel), § 115D-29 (community college personnel), § 153A-98(c)(7) (county personnel), and § 160A-168(c)(7) (city personnel) all share the pattern of authorizing release of otherwise confidential personnel information when essential to agency integrity. These statutes operate as carve-outs from the default confidentiality framework. The Charlotte/Mecklenburg local Act fits comfortably within this pattern, adding a CRB-facilitating purpose to the menu of permitted release triggers.

Common questions

Q: Can a citizen review board compel disclosure when the City Manager or Police Chief refuses?

A: The opinion does not address compelled disclosure. The local Act's language is permissive ("may"), not mandatory ("shall"). Without a statutory mandate, the CRB likely cannot compel disclosure of personnel information. The CRB's only remedy may be to seek statutory amendment or to seek a court order if it can identify a legal basis (which would have to come from the local Act itself or from another statute).

Q: What if the officer objects to disclosure?

A: The opinion does not address officer-objection rights. The personnel-file confidentiality framework generally treats personnel information as the employer's record (subject to the officer's privacy interests recognized by statute). The City Manager or Chief's discretionary release decision does not depend on officer consent, but the officer may have separate remedies (grievance, civil action) if disclosure violates the officer's legal rights.

Q: Does this opinion apply to other North Carolina citizen review boards?

A: The opinion specifically addresses Charlotte/Mecklenburg's local Act. Other jurisdictions with their own CRB local acts would need to apply the same analytical method to their own statutory text. The framework (broad CRB disclosure, narrow aggrieved-person disclosure, discretion in the official) is likely transferable, but the precise authority depends on each local act.

Q: What about news media requests for the same information?

A: The local Act addresses CRB and aggrieved-person disclosure. News media are not within either category. A media request would fall under the default § 160A-168 (city personnel files), and most of the information would remain confidential. The AG did not address media access in this opinion.

Citations from the opinion

• The local Act creating the Citizen Review Board (the opinion does not cite the specific session law)
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 115C-321
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 115D-29
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 126-24
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 153A-98(c)(7)
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 160A-168(c)(7)
• Union Carbide Corp. v. Offerman, 351 N.C. 310, 315, 526 S.E.2d 167, 170 (2000)

Source

• Landing page: https://ncdoj.gov/opinions/authority-to-disclose-police-officer-misconduct-information/

Original opinion text

(Questions submitted)

• Does the Act authorize the release of the disposition of previous disciplinary charges against the subject officer (a) whether or not "sustained" and (b) whether or not relied upon by the Department in determining the disposition of the current charge?
• If previous disciplinary charges are among the facts relied upon by the Department in determining the disposition of the current charge, may those charges and the underlying facts be released to the CRB and to the person alleged to have been aggrieved by the officer's action in the instant case?
• If the Department elects not to consider or rely upon all or specified categories of previous charges in determining the disposition of the current charge, is the Department nevertheless authorized to release facts concerning the previous charges upon request by the CRB for its use in determining whether the Chief of Police abused his discretion?

Before addressing these questions, we note that the foregoing language of the Act does not require the City Manager or Chief of Police to provide information to the CRB or the aggrieved person regarding disciplinary charges against a police officer. It simply authorizes the Chief of Police or the City Manager to provide that information to the CRB and the aggrieved person when they determine that releasing that information will "facilitate citizen review of the police disciplinary process." In this regard, the Act is similar to other laws authorizing public officials to release otherwise confidential personnel information upon their determination that certain conditions exist. See N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 126-24, 115C-321, 115D-29, 153A-98(c)(7), 160A-168(c)(7). (All authorizing public officers to release otherwise confidential personnel information upon a finding that the release of the information is essential to maintaining the integrity of the agency or the quality of the agency's services.)

With regard to the release of information to the CRB, we conclude that the Act permits the City Manager or Police Chief to disclose the disposition of previous charges against the officer, whether or not those charges were sustained, and whether or not the previous charges were relied upon by the Department in determining the disposition of the current charge. The Act also permits the City Manager or Police Chief to disclose to the CRB the facts the Department relied upon in determining the current charge, and the facts the Department relied upon in determining previous charges.

We reach these conclusions for several reasons. First, there is nothing in the language of the Act that limits the information the City Manager or Police Chief may disclose to the CRB to pending charges. There is also nothing in the Act that limits the Department to releasing only information about sustained charges. The plain language of the Act says that the Department may release to the CRB the disposition of "disciplinary charges" (plural) against "a police officer." Union Carbide Corp. v. Offerman, 351 N.C. 310, 315, 526 S.E.2d 167, 170 (2000). Therefore, in our opinion, these words contemplate authorization to release disposition information, whether or not the charges were sustained. This language also contemplates the release of information concerning more than one charge against an officer, which may include the dispositions of other, previous charges.

Second, in order for the CRB to determine whether there is abuse of discretion in the disposition of the current charge against an officer, the CRB may need to determine whether the Chief of Police should have considered the circumstances of previous charges against the officer in making the disposition of the current charge. The failure to consider or rely upon dispositions of previous charges or their underlying facts when making the disposition of the current charge could be significant in some cases.

The information the City Manager or Police Chief may disclose to a person alleged to be aggrieved by the officer's actions (or that person's survivor) is more limited. The Department may inform the aggrieved or the survivor about the disposition of the current charge involving the officer's alleged actions against the aggrieved, and the Department may disclose the facts it relied upon in making the disposition of the current charge. With regard to the dispositions of previous charges against the officer, the Act authorizes the disclosure of those dispositions to the aggrieved person or the survivor only if the Chief of Police has relied upon those dispositions when making the disposition of the current charge. If the Police Chief relied upon the dispositions of previous charges when making the disposition of the current charge, then those prior dispositions may be disclosed to the aggrieved or the survivor, whether or not the prior charges were sustained. Also, if the Police Chief relied upon the facts supporting previous dispositions when making the disposition of the current charge, such facts may be disclosed to the aggrieved person or the survivor. If the dispositions or underlying facts of previous charges were not relied upon in the disposition of the current charge, then the Department may not disclose those dispositions or facts to the aggrieved person or the survivor.

These conclusions flow from the clear language of the Act. In order to be eligible to receive facts about the disposition of a charge against a police officer, a person must be the one "alleged to have been aggrieved by the officer's actions," or the survivor of that person. If a person is aggrieved only by the officer's current alleged misconduct, and if the person was not the victim of the previous alleged misconduct, then the person was not "aggrieved" by the officer's previous alleged misconduct and the person is not eligible to receive facts about it. The only exception is when the Chief of Police relies upon facts from previous charges against the officer when making the disposition of a current charge. In such a case, the "facts relied upon" in the disposition of the current charge include facts concerning the previous charges, and those facts may be disclosed to the aggrieved or the survivor. There is no statutory language limiting such disclosure to facts about sustained charges. If the Department may disclose facts about previous charge dispositions to the aggrieved or the survivor, then such facts may be disclosed, regardless of whether the prior charges were sustained.

To summarize, we conclude that the Act permits the City Manager or Police Chief to disclose to the CRB the dispositions of current and previous misconduct charges, and the facts relied upon in making those dispositions, whether or not the charges were sustained. The City Manager or Police Chief may disclose the disposition of a charge, and the facts relied upon in making that disposition, to the person alleged to be aggrieved by the officer misconduct that is the subject of the charge, or that person's survivor. The City Manager or Police Chief may also disclose facts about previous charges against an officer to the person alleged to be aggrieved person by the officer's misconduct, or the survivor of that person, but only if the facts were relied upon in making the disposition of the current charge. If facts about a charge are otherwise disclosable to an alleged aggrieved person or the survivor, it makes no difference whether or not the charge was sustained.

We hope that this fully answers your request. Should you have further questions regarding this issue, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Very truly yours,

Reginald L. Watkins Senior Deputy Attorney General

Daniel D. Addison Assistant Attorney General