Less than a year after a new Freedom of Information Act law expanded public access to police investigative files in Virginia, Delegate Rob Bell has sponsored a bill that would reverse the reform, citing concern for victims’ privacy.
“There were immediate efforts to access what I would call very private information,” Bell says. He described a TV producer requesting access to a case file from the parents of murdered UVA student Hannah Graham, soon after the new law went into effect in July 2021. When the Grahams refused, Bell says the producer sought the complete investigative file in Graham’s murder through a FOIA request.
Bell’s bill passed through the House General Laws Committee last week on a party-line vote, helped by support from the parents of Graham and Morgan Harrington. It has alarmed family members of another woman, Molly Meghan Miller, whose 2017 death was investigated in Charlottesville and ruled a suicide.
“For over three years, this grim experience, from start to finish, has left our family with countless unanswered questions and unresolved concerns,” write Miller’s aunts, Tina Hicks and Lori Goodbody, in an affidavit attached to a FOIA lawsuit. The pair hopes to use the more expansive FOIA laws to learn more about the investigation into Miller’s death. The suit was sent to the city as formal notification of their intent to take legal action, and was received on February 3.
Miller was reported missing in December 2017. After a three-day search, Charlottesville police located her remains inside her own home. Miller’s death divided her family, with her mother publicly expressing support for police and requesting privacy, while other family members and friends expressed doubts about the investigation and what really happened to Miller.
“We lost our daughter, Molly Meghan Miller, to suicide on January 1, 2018,” reads a statement from Miller’s mother, Marian McConnell. “The case was closed in 2018. Tina Hicks and Lori Goodbody have no right and no need to any of Molly’s police investigative records…For 4 years we have asked them to accept the truth, honor Molly’s memory and respect our loss. We have been forced to disavow them due to their continued reprehensible behavior. If they file suit, we will respond accordingly.”
Hicks and Goodbody’s suit claims that they filed a FOIA request with Charlottesville police for records in Miller’s case in July, soon after the new law took effect. Police initially provided a time and cost estimate for fulfillment, then, after multiple delays, reversed course. In October, the department denied the request for any records in the case. The suit alleges that complete denial violates the new FOIA law.
The Miller family’s situation offers another case study for Bell’s bill. If it becomes law, the bill would prevent access to closed police case files by anyone other than immediate family, defined as a spouse, parent, child, sibling, grandparent or grandchild. In Miller’s case, that would mean only her mother.
“This bill [says] that victims should certainly still be allowed to have access to those records,” Bell says. His bill also calls for victims’ family members to be able to file an injunction against anyone seeking information in a case through FOIA.
Hicks and Goodbody’s attorney, Matthew Hardin, the former Greene County commonwealth’s attorney, spoke against the bill at a subcommittee hearing on February 8.
“The problem is when records can be released on a discretionary basis, which is how it used to be, the police could decide unilaterally when they wanted to give up records and when they wanted to keep them secret,” Hardin tells C-VILLE. “Of course, they release the records that make them look good, and they don’t release the records that make them look bad.”
Hardin, a Republican, says the current FOIA law already grants an exemption to police allowing them to withhold crime scene photos and other personal information about victims and witnesses. He points out that Bell’s bill’s reference to immediate family doesn’t fit with a lot of Virginia families, which may include same-sex parents or step-parents.
“It’s not just a problem under FOIA,” Hardin says. “This is actually an attempt to take the definition of family back to the 1950s.”
While Bell claims his bill would protect victims’ and witnesses’ privacy, Hardin believes greater transparency helps build trust between police departments and the communities they serve.
The Virginia Coalition for Open Government also opposes Bell’s bill, according to Executive Director Megan Rhyne.
“We believe that like any other governmental entity, there needs to be some sort of oversight over how police and prosecutors do their jobs,” Rhyne says. “We don’t want to interfere in the ability to conduct an investigation, but once it’s completed and there’s no harm to come from disclosure, they should be releasing records the way other public bodies do.”
She also points out that not all victims have the same reaction in these situations—victims of the 2019 mass shooting at Virginia Beach supported expanded access to police case files.
As Bell’s bill wends through the General Assembly, Hardin says he is waiting for a response from the city before filing the FOIA lawsuit in Miller’s case. City Attorney Lisa Robertson did not return a call requesting comment.
Hardin says he’ll continue to speak out against Bell’s bill, and he hopes other victims of crimes who prefer greater police transparency will also speak up.
“I think that all we’re saying is, once [an] investigation’s over, let the public take a look at it and see what went right and what went wrong,” Hardin says.
Updated 2/16 to add a statement from Marian McConnell.
