Today’s top news story is Trump’s mugshot, taken upon his booking on Georgia felony charges. Apparently, mugshots are publicly accessible under Georgia law. But in New Jersey, mugshots cannot be accessed under OPRA.

As I discussed in this post, the GRC has consistently ruled that OPRA exempts arrest photos from disclosure to the public. The GRC bases this conclusion on Executive Order 69 (Whitman), which exempts “fingerprint cards, plates and photographs and similar criminal investigation records….”

This executive order is still in force; notably, the Attorney General’s current Law Enforcement Guidelines reference it in the section concerning police department records.

There are no court cases addressing OPRA requests for photos of arrested defendants, but the GRC’s position that Executive Order 69’s exemption applies to mugshots seems reasonable.