FOIA privacy exemption/personal nature prong; MCL 15.243(1)(a); ESPN Inc v Michigan State Univ; FOIA privacy exemption/public interest balancing; MCL 15.231(2); Rataj v City of Romulus; Sufficiency of agency explanation & need for in camera review; MCL 15.235(5); State News v Michigan State Univ; State Appellate Defender’s Office (SADO)

The court held that defendant-city properly invoked FOIA’s privacy exemption to redact the identifying information of witnesses in certain police reports and that the trial court correctly granted partial summary disposition. SADO requested all reports, memos, and logs from 2006 to 5/08 for a particular address in an effort to locate potential exculpatory material for a murder client. Defendant produced 23 police reports but redacted names, addresses, contact information, and similar data for individuals mentioned in the reports, citing the privacy exemption. The trial court identified 10 reports involving gunshots or a stolen vehicle, found that the privacy exemption covered the witness identifiers in those reports, and granted defendant partial summary disposition while the parties later stipulated to dismiss the remaining claims to allow an appeal. On appeal, the court applied the two step privacy analysis and first held that the redacted information was of a personal nature because the names were linked to serious criminal incidents, concluding that “the trial court did not err by finding that the identifying information of witnesses in the police reports in this case constituted information of a personal nature because the police reports associate the witnesses with criminal incidents.” The court rejected SADO’s arguments that its own benign motives or status reduced the privacy interest, reiterating that requester identity and intended use are irrelevant under FOIA. On the second prong, the court held that disclosing the witness identifiers would not meaningfully advance public understanding of governmental operations because the underlying narratives, officer names, and general descriptions were already released, and that “the identifying information in this case is simply information on private citizens accumulated in government files that reveal little to nothing about the inner working of government,” so disclosure would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. Finally, the court concluded that defendant’s explanation in its denial letter was sufficiently specific and that an in camera review or amendment opportunity would have been futile, noting that “the explanation in its letter meets these requirements” and that SADO’s proposed amendments would not change the privacy balancing analysis. Affirmed.