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Kirby Sanders, The Morning News

Requests for documents under the state Freedom of Information Act must be delivered in person rather than by mail, according to a Thursday ruling by Benton County Circuit Judge Tom Keith.

Keith made that finding in dismissing a complaint against Sheriff Andy Lee. The complaint involved a request for information by an attorney on behalf of a bondsman who filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against Lee.

Bondsman Chris Lockhart, 42, and his attorney, Monzer Mansour of Fayetteville, filed a complaint against Lee claiming that a request for information regarding an investigation of Lockhart had not been answered. Mansour wrote a letter to Lee on Feb. 24 asking that the documents be supplied to him. No response was forthcoming, Mansour said.

In his ruling, Keith said that the FOIA “did not contemplate that people can just mail in requests and expect the agency to send them documents.” Rather, Keith said that those expecting a response to an FOIA request must be physically present in order to receive the information.

Mansour argued that such a finding would prove to be a disability to residents distant from the location where documents might be kept.

“If an attorney from Arkadelphia wanted documents from up here,” Mansour argued, “that would mean they would have to drive up here to present the request without even knowing if the documents were available.”

Mansour also said that he did not necessarily expect that documents should be mailed to those requesting them. Rather, he said, he objected that Lee did not reply to the request at all.

“It was not a matter that the sheriff had not prepared the documents for us, but that there should have been some communication in response,” Mansour said.

County Attorney Robin Green argued that two attorney general’s opinions supported the notion that FOIA requests be presented in person. She also said that those opinions stated only that the county’s obligation is to make the documents available for inspection and copying. The county has no obligation to photocopy or to deliver copied documents.

Green also told the judge that the requested documents were prepared and were available.

Keith dismissed the complaint on the condition that the requested documents be immediately supplied to Mansour.

Lockhart’s federal suit claims that racial discrimination was the reason he was arrested in November on allegations he returned a client to the Benton County Jail without prior notification to the sheriff’s office and that he gave discounted bonds to inmates who recruited clients while incarcerated.

Charges against Lockhart were later dropped.

Keith, in making his ruling, noted that he had been a news reporter before the passage of the FOIA and lobbied for its initial adoption. He said, however, that the intent of the law was immediate delivery of requested documents that would require the requesting party to be available to inspect them.