Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Unclear language in a few state RCWs may be leading to inequities in the public about the release of booking photos for jail and prison inmates.
The main culprit is RCW 70.48.100, which essentially says that booking photos are confidential inmate records and cannot be disclosed without the written permission of the photographed person.
There are a few exceptions, mostly surrounding sex offenders. The photo can be released if it depicts in a sex offender, and depending on the level, it is often required when that person enters the sex offender registry.
But a legal loophole created a unique dilemma between your local newspaper and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office last week.
Damion M. Pegram, of Davenport, was convicted of nine crimes, including third-degree rape. I requested the booking photo to accompany the article sharing such news in last week’s issue, and the Sheriff’s Office declined on the basis that they don’t disseminate those photos based on the above RCW, a response I’ve received in the past.
But a subsection of the RCW created a dilemma that, essentially, could lead to both the newspaper and the Sheriff’s Office being “correct.”
Subsection 4(b) states that photographs and information concerning a person convicted of a sex offense as defined in RCW 9.94A.030 may be disseminated as provided in (10 other RCW’s).” From the newspaper’s perspective, Pegram’s third-degree rape conviction as a sex offense would be enough for his booking photo to be released per that language. But those 10 other RCW’s mostly discuss the sex offender registry, which Pegram will not join until his prison sentence is over, per the Sheriff’s Office.
Prosecuting attorney Adam Walser, the Sheriff’s Office’s legal counsel, interpreted the RCW as to not disseminate the photo. And the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs told the Sheriff’s Office that releasing Pegram’s photograph would set a precedent for the Office, essentially requiring them to release future booking photos.
However, the Association said the Dept. of Corrections isn’t under the same guidelines and should release the booking photos. And other law enforcement agencies around the state have tossed caution to the wind and released booking photos to the public.
In almost all cases, I’m a strong proponent of local government control and am against overreaching RCW’s and laws on the state and federal level. But this is a case where the state legislature needs to clarify and reconsider the RCW surrounding booking photos.
Everyone in this country is innocent until proven guilty, and I respect the state’s desire to protect individual rights of those booked. But any Superior Court case contains a bevy of personal information that’s easily accessible through public records, including that person’s full name, height, weight, race, nationality, home address, hometown and a detailed account of the police report involving their alleged crime and arrest.
Not to mention, most other states release mugshots almost immediately following arrest.
And because the decision of releasing booking photos essentially falls to local agencies, as the Sheriff’s Office and Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs has interpreted, this unintentionally creates an inequality for the public in the state of Washington. Whether or not you see a photo of someone convicted of a felony crime in your area is, in most cases, left to how bold the local law enforcement agency is feeling.
The local Sheriff’s Office is, quite understandably, not on the bold side in this case.
And the fact that the Sheriff’s Office even must consult a legal opinion to interpret what should be such a simple matter is another negative consequence of the RCW.
I understand waiting to release photos while the person is still being tried, unless that person is a danger to the public and out of custody. The Sheriff’s Office released photos of jail escapee Cody Magruder in Aug. 2022 and later-convicted murderer Charles Bergman a month later.
But once convicted of a “serious crime,” which is clearly defined in state RCW’s, those photos becoming common public record would be a service to the citizens and erase potential
headaches for news media and law enforcement agencies alike. The state legislature should consider rewriting the RCW to require the release of booking photos upon conviction of said serious crime.
— Drew Lawson is the managing editor of the Lincoln County Record-Times. Email him at drew@cheneyfreepress.com.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
Reader Comments(0)