New Jersey Supreme Court to decide if public can see cop’s internal affairs file after criminal case expunged

The state’s highest court will soon decide whether the internal affairs file of a Jersey City cop who drunkenly fired a shotgun at an alcohol-soaked barbecue will ever see the light of day, with open government advocates insisting the city is trying to evade transparency by hiding the document.

Argued Tuesday before the New Jersey Supreme Court, the case stems from the New Jersey Monitor’s attempts to get internal affairs investigation documents about Lt. Michael Timmins, who State Police say shot a gun at a 2019 party at his Sussex County home.

Initially charged with terroristic threats and weapons offenses, Timmins later entered a pretrial diversion program that let him avoid jail time and later expunge the arrest from his record, the Monitor wrote.

Jersey City’s attorneys argued the expungement means the city can’t release the internal affairs file, since it would confirm details of a criminal case that technically doesn’t exist — and it would also open up city employees to prosecution because they revealed the existence of the expunged records.

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“The city’s position here is, first and foremost, that we need to make sure we are adhering to the plain language of the statute — because there’s a lot at risk here if we get it wrong,” Assistant Corporation Counsel David Jacobsen told the court.

“If we give out an internal affairs report, and it’s determined that the related offense includes what happened in our internal affairs report, we’re exposing our employees to criminal penalties here,” he added.

“If there’s an arrest that was expunged, the city also cannot reveal the existence of the arrest that was expunged.”

But CJ Griffin, an attorney who specializes in the state’s public records law, argued the exemption was irrelevant since the Jersey City police neither arrested nor prosecuted Timmins.

“If this were a [public records] request to the State Police, I think we’d be in a different circumstance,” she said. “We’d have to make different arguments, because the expungement statute would clearly apply.”

“We don’t think it applies at all because Jersey City is not serving in that role,” she told the justices. “I think that Jersey City … is seeking special treatment for police officers that’s favorable to secrecy.”

The justices gave little indication as to which way they were leaning — they sharply questioned both attorneys at times, and often engaged in a hypertechnical dissection of the law’s minutiae.

On Tuesday afternoon, Griffin told The Jersey Vindicator that she was “hopeful that common sense prevails.”

“We wish Jersey City had not originally denied our request, but we’re hopeful the court takes that under consideration and allows more information about this egregious case to come out.”

The arguments came nearly six years after the shocking August 2019 incident, which erupted at a barbecue Timmins hosted for family and friends, according to court documents.

Near the end of the night, Timmins and others argued over what they should do with the leftovers — and that’s when the lieutenant strode inside, grabbed his shotgun from a safe and said, “Today is your day!”

Then he pulled the trigger.

Someone called 911, and the State Police found Timmins’ girlfriend and her son restraining the inebriated man, the documents said.

Cops later seized 30 firearms from his home.

But Timmins pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was funneled into a pretrial intervention program that helped him avoid a prison stint.

The Jersey City Police Department conducted its own investigation, and found Timmins had been negligent when he squeezed off the round while under the influence.

The department suspended him for 90 days, the documents said.

The New Jersey Monitor sued for the internal investigation files in June 2022, but a trial court judge denied their request.

But that decision was overturned last September, when a three-judge appellate court panel concluded the trial court judge should not have sealed the file “without finding good cause to overcome the strong presumption of public access to court records,” the opinion said.

“The onus was on defendants to demonstrate their interest in secrecy substantially outweighed the presumption of public access to the records,” the judges wrote. “For these reasons, we remand to the trial judge to conduct an analysis of the factors and reach his own conclusions.”

The Supreme Court will likely issue a decision sometime later this year.

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