CJ Griffin Quoted in Several Articles as NJ Supreme Court Upholds Attorney General's Authority to Issue Directives to Release Names of Disciplined Police Officers

CJ Griffin, director of the Justice Gary S. Stein Center at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C., was quoted in NorthJersey.com Article, “NJ Supreme Court rules that attorney general can release names of disciplined police.” The article discusses the “significant victory for advocates of police transparency” as the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the Attorney General’s authority to issue Law Enforcement Directives No. 2022-05 and No. 2020-06 regarding the disclosure of the names of police officers who received major discipline. With respect to police officers disciplined in the past 20 years, however, the Court designated one judge of the Superior Court to conduct a broad-based hearing “to hear and evaluate testimony and decide if the elements of the doctrine of promissory estoppel have been met.”

Transparency advocates like CJ Griffin, a Hackensack attorney who focuses on public records access, were frustrated for different reasons.

The decision was a victory, she said. But it offers only a small sliver of transparency, because most complaints aren’t sustained in the first place, she said.

Griffin urged the state Legislature to pass a bill introduced last summer, S-2656, that would make certain police disciplinary records public, such as complaints, allegations, charges, dispositions of proceedings and transcripts of any disciplinary trial or hearing.

“We must end the practice of police investigating themselves in secrecy and clearing themselves of misconduct,” Griffin said.

To view the NorthJersey.com article, click here.

To view the New Jersey Law Journal article, click here.

To view the Hudson County View article, click here.

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