Gonzalez v. Miller

Jarrod Miller, a citizen and taxpayer in Athens-Clarke County, asked the district attorney's office for public records about staffing, caseloads, and other office operations. He alleged District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez failed to turn over records on time and even directed an employee to delete some correspondence. Miller sued to enforce the Open Records Act, and Gonzalez asked the Clarke County Superior Court to dismiss the case, arguing that her office is part of the judicial branch and not covered by the records law, that Miller lacked the right to sue, and that she was protected by prosecutorial immunity. The trial court rejected these arguments and let the case proceed, and Gonzalez appealed. The Supreme Court of Georgia agreed with the trial court on every point: the records law covers district attorneys' offices, Miller has the right to sue as someone who requested records through his lawyer, and prosecutorial immunity protects Gonzalez only from personal lawsuits, not from official-capacity claims aimed at her office.

The court held that district attorneys' offices are 'agencies' subject to the Open Records Act because they exercise executive power despite being created in the judicial article of the Georgia Constitution, that a citizen who requested records through his attorney has standing to sue, and that prosecutorial immunity blocks only personal lawsuits against a district attorney, not official-capacity claims against her office.

The ruling confirms that every district attorney's office in Georgia must comply with public records requests like any other government agency, giving citizens, journalists, and watchdog groups a clear path to obtain records about how local prosecutors run their offices and spend public resources.

Affirmed

1. The court read the Open Records Act's definition of 'agency,' which borrows from the Open Meetings Act and covers government departments, boards, bureaus, and 'offices,' and found that other Georgia statutes already describe a district attorney's staff as a 'district attorney's office,' so it fits within that definition.
2. The court rejected Gonzalez's separation-of-powers argument by explaining that Georgia's Constitution separates governmental powers, not government branches, and that officials can hold power from more than one branch if the Constitution allows it, as it does for the Lieutenant Governor.
3. Applying that principle, the court reasoned that because judicial power is vested exclusively in courts and legislative power exclusively in the General Assembly, and because prosecuting crimes is neither judging cases nor making laws, a district attorney's core function of enforcing the law is executive power, even though the office is described in the judicial article of the Constitution.
4. On standing, the court accepted as true Miller's sworn statement that he directed his attorney to request the records on his behalf, which was enough at this early stage to show he personally suffered the kind of injury (denial of his right to inspect records) needed to sue.
5. On immunity, the court distinguished sovereign immunity, which shields the government itself and is waived here because the Open Records Act specifically allows suits against agencies holding public records, from prosecutorial immunity, which is a personal defense that only protects Gonzalez from claims against her as an individual, not from claims against her office.

• Open Records Act
• district attorney's office
• prosecutorial immunity
• sovereign immunity
• public records requests