Annapolis, Maryland: A three-judge panel of the Maryland Appellate Court issued a ruling finding that Anton’s Law, the state’s police transparency statute, requires departments to release officer names tied to use-of-force incidents and the administrative reviews that follow them.
The ruling came in a lawsuit between The Washington Post and the Ocean City Police Department that began with a public records request in 2021.
The court found that use-of-force reports are not personnel records under the Maryland Public Information Act and therefore cannot be withheld from public release. Leahy’s opinion stated that allowing police departments to unilaterally withhold such records would undermine the legislative intent behind Anton’s Law. The ruling creates binding precedent for Maryland’s state trial courts unless the Ocean City Police Department appeals to the Maryland Supreme Court and prevails.
Anton’s Law was passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2021, becoming the first state in the nation to repeal the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, which had long shielded police misconduct records from public view. The law was named after Anton Black, a 19-year-old who died in 2018 in Greensboro, Maryland, after being restrained by law enforcement. His family spent months trying to obtain police and autopsy records before the media drew attention to the case.
Following the law’s passage, The Washington Post submitted public records requests to departments statewide. When Ocean City denied the requests, redacting officer names and blocking access to internal use-of-force review documents, the Post sued in Worcester County Circuit Court in 2023. The circuit court sided largely with the Post in May 2024. Ocean City appealed. The appellate court now largely affirmed the lower court’s position while sending the matter back to the circuit court to determine what redactions, if any, apply to internal review documents before release.
Police accountability advocates described the decision as a major step forward, with outside counsel for The Washington Post calling the opinion groundbreaking and noting that it strongly reaffirms the purpose of Anton’s Law.
