FOIA 25-118: Final case outcomes for January and February 2025

On June 18, 2025, a requester faxed the Delta County Prosecutor's Office a two-page request for records showing how every criminal case in the county concluded during January and February 2025 — verdicts, dismissals, plea agreements, deferrals, and declined charges. The request went out of its way to say it was not asking the office to build a new report or compile statistics, only to produce documents that already existed, "even if they must be pulled from individual case files." Two days later the office extended its deadline. Five days after that it sent a bill: $1,041.60, built from twelve hours of search labor and thirty hours of redaction labor, with a $520.80 deposit demanded before a single page would be produced.

Summary

FOIA 25-118 is the second request in this archive to seek information about criminal case dispositions in Delta County, and it is the first to reach the fee stage. Where FOIA 25-94 asked for case-outcome statistics and was answered with a claim that no such document exists, FOIA 25-118 asked for the underlying records and was answered with a price. That difference is the most consequential thing about this file, and it is examined in detail below.

The paper trail is short and unusually clean. The request was faxed on June 18, 2025 and logged by the office's fax system at 9:43:25 a.m. Eastern time. The office issued a written notice of extension dated June 20, 2025, checking the box for "voluminous records" and setting July 9, 2025 as the date it expected to provide records. On June 25, 2025, the FOIA coordinator issued a seven-page "Detailed Cost Itemization" estimating $1,041.60 in total fees, requiring a $520.80 good-faith deposit, and enclosing the county's standard excess-fee appeal form and a copy of the relevant statutory excerpt.

No records have been produced. The archive does not contain evidence that the deposit was paid, and it does not contain evidence that it was refused. What the file shows is a request that was processed on time, priced in detail, and then stopped at the payment gate.

What was requested

The letter is dated June 18, 2025 and addressed to the FOIA Coordinator at the Delta County Prosecutor's Office, 310 Ludington Street, Escanaba, Michigan 49829, by fax to 906-789-5197. It invokes the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231 et seq., and states its subject as "FOIA Request – Final Case Outcomes for Jan 1–Feb 28, 2025."

It asks for "final outcomes of criminal cases handled by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office for the limited period of January 1, 2025 through February 28, 2025," and then specifies:

"Final resolutions of all criminal cases—both felonies and misdemeanors—that were resolved during the above date range, including but not limited to: Jury verdicts (guilty or not guilty); Dismissals; Plea agreements; Deferred or diverted resolutions; Declined charges (if documented)."

Three sentences in the letter do most of the legal work, and they are worth quoting in full because they anticipate the two objections an agency most often raises:

"I am not requesting that your office create new reports or compile statistics; rather, I am seeking existing documents or data in your possession that reflect these final outcomes, even if they must be pulled from individual case files."

"If there are anticipated costs for labor or duplication, please provide a detailed written estimate before processing."

"If any portion of this request is denied, please cite the specific exemption(s) under the FOIA statute and describe how each exemption applies."

The letter also states a delivery preference: "If available electronically, I prefer digital delivery via email." That preference matters to the fee analysis, because electronic delivery removes the copying and mailing components of a FOIA charge and leaves only labor.

The paper trail

June 18, 2025 — the request arrives

Documented: The transmission header printed on the letter reads "06-18-2025 6:42 AM" and the fax platform's own receipt records delivery to 906-789-5197 at 6.18.2025 09:43:25 AM −04:00, two pages received. The difference between 6:42 and 9:43 is a time-zone artifact: the sending fax header prints local Mountain time, while the receiving platform stamps Eastern time. Both refer to the same transmission. The office's own cost itemization records the request as received on June 18, 2025, which matches.

This is worth pausing on, because receipt dates have been a point of friction in this archive before. In FOIA 25-94, the request was faxed to the Delta County Clerk's office on May 23, 2025 but was not forwarded to the Prosecutor's Office until May 27, and the office dated its response clock from the later date. Here there is no such gap: the fax went directly to the Prosecutor's Office fax line, the office's fax platform logged it, and the office's own itemization agrees on the date. The receipt date is not in dispute.

June 20, 2025 — the extension

Documented: The office issued a "Notice to Extend Response Time for FOIA Request" dated June 20, 2025. The form records Request No. 25-118, states that the request was received June 18, 2025, and checks the box indicating receipt by fax. It checks the first listed reason for extension — that the records are voluminous — and names Ashleigh Young at 906-789-5100 as the contact. The extended date is July 9, 2025.

The extended date is also inside the statutory maximum. Ten business days measured from the original June 25 deadline runs June 26, 27, 30, July 1, 2, 3, [July 4, a holiday], July 7, 8, 9, and 10. Whether July 4 is counted as a business day or excluded as a legal holiday, July 9 falls at or inside the ten-business-day limit. The office did not overreach on time.

That conclusion is worth stating explicitly because the natural suspicion in a watchdog archive runs the other way. Here the record does not support it. The extension was timely, reasoned, and within the statutory ceiling. A reader who wants to argue that the office mishandled the clock will have to find that argument somewhere other than the extension notice.

June 25, 2025 — the bill

Documented: The FOIA coordinator issued a "Freedom of Information Act Request Detailed Cost Itemization" dated June 25, 2025 — the same day as the original five-day deadline, and two weeks before the extended July 9 date. The form is marked "Estimate," and the "Cost estimate" box is checked rather than "Bill," which is consistent with the requester's request for an estimate before processing.

The itemization is reproduced below exactly as it appears on the form. Blank lines are shown as blank; the office did not enter a figure for copying, contract labor, duplication, or mailing.

Documented: The arithmetic on the form is internally consistent. Forty-eight increments at $6.20 is $297.60. One hundred twenty increments at $6.20 is $744.00. Their sum is $1,041.60. The deposit is exactly half of that. Every figure on the page reconciles.

Documented: The form also records an "Estimated Time Frame to Provide Records" of ten days, which corresponds to the July 9, 2025 date on the extension notice.

What the estimate actually charges for

The itemization is stated in fifteen-minute increments, which is the unit MCL 15.234 requires. Converting those increments into hours produces the number that matters most in this file:

• 48 increments × 15 minutes = 720 minutes = 12.0 hours of search and examination labor.
• 120 increments × 15 minutes = 1,800 minutes = 30.0 hours of redaction labor.
• Total: 42.0 hours of county employee time, at an effective rate of $24.80 per hour.

That effective rate is derived, not stated. The form records a "Charge per ¼ hour" of $6.20, and $6.20 multiplied by four is $24.80. The rate itself is not obviously unreasonable for county clerical or paralegal work in Michigan's Upper Peninsula; a full-time equivalent at $24.80 per hour is roughly $51,600 a year, which is within the range of entry-level county administrative pay. The archive takes no position that the hourly rate is inflated.

What the record does not show is whose wage was used. MCL 15.234(1)(a) and (1)(b) both cap the charge at "the hourly wage of its lowest-paid employee capable of" performing the task, "regardless of whether that person is available or who actually performs the labor." The itemization form has a dedicated line for "Hourly Wage Charged" and a separate line for "Hourly Wage with Fringe Benefit Cost" plus a percentage multiplier. On the copy provided to this archive, those lines are not completed. The only rate that appears is the $6.20 quarter-hour charge.

This is a documentation gap rather than a demonstrated overcharge, but it is a gap with legal weight. MCL 15.234(2) provides that when calculating labor costs, "fee components shall be itemized in a manner that expresses both the hourly wage and the number of hours charged." The number of hours is derivable from the increment counts. The hourly wage is derivable only by multiplying the quarter-hour charge by four. Whether a derivable figure satisfies a statute that says "expresses" is a legal question this archive cannot resolve, but a requester challenging the fee would be entitled to ask the office to state the wage and the classification it used.

One feature of the estimate cuts in the office's favor and should be recorded. The statute permits a public body to add up to 50 percent to the labor charge to cover fringe benefits, provided it notes the multiplier on the itemization. The office did not add a fringe multiplier. Had it applied the full 50 percent, the labor total on 42 hours would have been $1,562.40 rather than $1,041.60. The office charged the base rate only.

Analysis

1. The timing was handled correctly, and that is the honest finding

Documented: The request arrived June 18. The extension notice is dated June 20. The fee estimate is dated June 25. The extended production date is July 9.

This matters for the credibility of the archive. A watchdog page that treats every agency action as suspicious is not useful. Here the procedural handling was competent, and saying so makes the substantive criticism that follows easier to take seriously.

2. The office provided the itemization the statute requires — in form

Documented: MCL 15.234(4) requires a public body's procedures to include "a standard form for detailed itemization of any fee amount," and requires that the itemization "clearly list and explain the allowable charges for each of the 6 fee components." The office used a seven-page standard form that walks through all six components — search, redaction, nonpaper media, paper copies, duplication labor, and mailing — and it filled in the two that applied.

That is more than many Michigan public bodies do. Requesters frequently receive a single number with no breakdown. Here the requester asked for a detailed written estimate before processing, and the office supplied one, with increment counts and a stated per-quarter-hour rate. On the narrow question of whether the office complied with the requester's request for a pre-processing estimate, the answer is yes.

3. But the wage basis is missing, and the statute asks for it

Documented: The "Hourly Wage Charged" line and the "Hourly Wage with Fringe Benefit Cost" line are not completed on the copy provided. The only rate stated is $6.20 per quarter hour.

Open question: Is $24.80 per hour the wage of the lowest-paid county employee capable of locating and redacting these records, or is it the wage of the person who actually did the work? The itemization does not say. This is the single most useful question a requester could put to the office in writing.

4. Thirty hours of redaction is the number that needs justification

Documented: The estimate charges 120 increments — thirty hours — for separating exempt from nonexempt information, at a cost of $744.00. That is 71.4 percent of the total fee and more than twice the search labor.

Our reading: Thirty hours is a substantial amount of redaction labor for records covering two months of case resolutions. It is not impossible: if the responsive material consists of hundreds of charging documents, plea records, and dismissal orders, each requiring victim identifiers, juvenile references, and medical or personal information to be masked, thirty hours could be consumed. But the itemization gives no indication of how many records or pages are involved. Without a volume figure, a reader cannot tell whether thirty hours reflects a large record set or an inefficient redaction process.

Open question: How many responsive records are there, and how many pages? A one-line answer would let any reader evaluate the thirty-hour figure.

5. Section 3(a) requires the office to identify why the fee is necessary at all

The itemization form reproduces this requirement as pre-printed text on section 3(a), followed by a blank introduced by the word "specifically." On the copy provided, that line contains handwriting that is only partly legible in the scan. This archive cannot determine from the document whether the office's entry satisfies the specificity requirement, and does not assert that it fails. But the requirement is substantive, not ceremonial: an agency that charges for redaction must be able to point to the particular feature of this request that makes free processing unreasonably costly.

For a request seeking case outcomes across two months of criminal dockets, a plausible specific justification would be the volume of records and the density of statutorily protected information within them. A recitation of the statutory language alone would not be specific.

6. The deposit is the statutory maximum

Documented: The office required a good-faith deposit of $520.80. That is exactly 50 percent of the $1,041.60 estimate.

Two details on the form are worth noting. The "Percent of Deposit" field is handwritten and only partly legible in the scan; the archive relies on the dollar amount, which is unambiguous and which equals exactly half. And the form's own printed text states the rule correctly: "The deposit cannot exceed 1/2 of the total estimated fee."

7. The deposit is a fee, and that changes the appeal route

That is why the office enclosed the "FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal an Excess Fee" rather than a denial appeal form. The enclosure is procedurally correct. A requester who believes $1,041.60 exceeds what MCL 15.234 permits has a dedicated statutory track that is faster and cheaper than a denial lawsuit: a written appeal to the head of the public body, which must "specifically state the word 'appeal'" and "identify how the required fee exceeds the amount permitted," followed if necessary by a civil action.

Under MCL 15.240a(2), the head of the public body must waive, reduce, or uphold the fee within ten business days of receiving the appeal, or issue one notice extending that period by up to ten business days. A determination upholding or reducing the fee must include "a certification from the head of the public body that the statements in the determination are accurate and that the fee amount complies with" the body's guidelines and section 4. Under MCL 15.240a(1)(b), a civil action for a fee reduction must be filed within 45 days after receiving the notice of the required fee or the determination on appeal.

The stakes are real. Under MCL 15.240a(6), a requester who prevails by obtaining a reduction of 50 percent or more may recover attorneys' fees and costs. Under MCL 15.240a(7), a court that finds the body "arbitrarily and capriciously violated this act by charging an excessive fee" must order a $500 civil fine and may award $500 in punitive damages. And under MCL 15.240a(4), review is de novo with the burden on the public body to establish that the fee complies.

8. The deposit deadline was August 12, 2025 — and that deadline has passed

The same subsection fixes the arithmetic: notice "is considered received 3 days after it is sent, regardless of the means of transmission," and the notice "must include notice of the date by which the deposit must be received, which date is 48 days after the date the notice is sent."

Applying that to a notice dated June 25, 2025: deemed received June 28; forty-five days later, and forty-eight days after sending, is August 12, 2025. A requester who neither paid the $520.80 nor filed a fee appeal by that date lost the request by operation of statute, without any further action by the office.

Open question: The archive does not know whether the deposit was paid. If it was, the office owed records within the July 9 time frame or as soon thereafter as the work could be completed, and the file is simply incomplete. If it was not, and no appeal was filed, the request was abandoned on August 12, 2025 and nothing further is owed. Those two possibilities lead to opposite conclusions about this file, and the documents reviewed here do not distinguish between them.

9. The contrast with FOIA 25-94 is the central finding

This is where FOIA 25-118 becomes more than a fee dispute.

Documented: In FOIA 25-94, the requester asked the same office for "the number of cases resulting in guilty verdicts at trial, not-guilty verdicts at trial, dismissals, and plea agreements," along with felony-versus-misdemeanor outcome breakdowns and any internal performance reports. The office's June 5, 2025 response denied those categories on the ground that the described documents "do not currently exist." It released warrant counts by originating agency instead.

Documented: In FOIA 25-118, the requester asked for the same underlying information — final resolutions of criminal cases, including verdicts, dismissals, pleas, deferrals, and declines — but framed it to avoid the nonexistence answer, stating expressly: "I am not requesting that your office create new reports or compile statistics; rather, I am seeking existing documents or data in your possession that reflect these final outcomes, even if they must be pulled from individual case files."

Documented: The office did not answer FOIA 25-118 with a claim of nonexistence. It answered with a fee estimate to search and redact.

Our reading: These two responses are in tension. In June 2025 the office told this requester that no document reporting trial outcomes, dismissals, and plea agreements exists. Thirteen days later, asked for existing documents reflecting those same outcomes, the office quoted twelve hours to locate them and thirty hours to redact them. A fee estimate of that kind is ordinarily prepared on the assumption that there is something to find.

What this does not prove: A fee estimate is not a finding that records exist. An agency can estimate search time before searching, and a coordinator may price a request conservatively on the theory that responsive material is likely. The estimate is consistent with the existence of responsive records; it is not proof of it. The archive therefore records this as a serious open question, not as a contradiction established on the face of the documents.

Why it matters anyway: If responsive records do exist in individual case files — which is precisely what the 25-118 request presupposed and what the fee estimate implies — then the 25-94 answer that no such record "exists" was, at minimum, incomplete. The distinction the office drew may be a real one: a compiled statistical report may not exist even though the underlying case records do. Michigan FOIA does not require an agency to create a new document, so a nonexistence denial of a compilation request can be lawful while the underlying records remain producible on request. But that distinction is exactly the kind of thing a public body should explain when it denies a request, and the 25-94 response did not explain it.

The practical lesson for requesters is concrete and worth stating: ask for the records, not the report. FOIA 25-118 was drafted to do that, and the office's response changed from "does not exist" to a priced production. Whether the price is fair is a separate question, but the shift in posture is itself information.

10. The request's own drafting affected the price

Documented: The request asked for records "even if they must be pulled from individual case files."

Our reading: That sentence was included to defeat a nonexistence denial, and it likely did. But it also invited a labor charge. A request that asks an agency to pull individual case files is, by design, a request that requires searching and examining records one at a time — which is the activity MCL 15.234(1)(a) authorizes agencies to bill for. The requester could not have both the breadth of a case-file-level search and the low cost of a database query. This is a genuine trade-off in FOIA practice, not a sign of bad faith on either side.

A narrower alternative — for example, requesting the prosecutor's case-management system's disposition report for the period, or the docket sheets from Delta County Circuit Court and District Court — might have produced much of the same information at little or no cost, because court dockets are generally public and often available online. That alternative is discussed in the next-steps section.

Potential concerns and open questions

The following are questions raised by the record, not findings of wrongdoing:

• Wage basis. The itemization states a $6.20 quarter-hour charge but leaves the "Hourly Wage Charged" and employee-classification fields blank. Which county position, and which wage, is the basis for $24.80 per hour?
• Volume. How many responsive records and pages are there? The thirty-hour redaction estimate cannot be evaluated without a record count.
• Specificity under MCL 15.234(3). The form's "specifically" line identifies the nature of the unreasonably high costs in handwriting that is only partly legible. Does the entry identify a feature of this particular request, or restate the statute?
• Prior redaction. Has the office previously redacted any of these same records and retained the redacted versions? If so, MCL 15.234(1)(b) bars charging to redact them again.
• Deposit status. Was the $520.80 paid? If not, and no fee appeal was filed, the request was abandoned on August 12, 2025.
• Consistency with FOIA 25-94. If responsive records exist in individual case files, why did the earlier response state that no document reporting case outcomes exists, without explaining the distinction between a compiled report and the underlying records?
• Fringe benefits. No fringe multiplier was applied, which reduced the fee. Was that intentional, or an omission that could be corrected upward in a future estimate?

What this record does and does not show

It shows that a request was faxed on June 18, 2025 and received the same day; that the office issued a timely extension notice on June 20; that the office issued a detailed, arithmetically consistent fee estimate of $1,041.60 on June 25; that the estimate rested on forty-two hours of labor, thirty of them for redaction; and that a deposit of exactly half the total was demanded.

It does not show that the fee was excessive, that the redaction estimate was inflated, that the office acted in bad faith, or that any record was improperly withheld. No records have been produced, so there is nothing yet to compare against the request. The archive also does not know whether the deposit was paid, which means the current status of the request is genuinely uncertain.

It does not establish that responsive records exist. The fee estimate is consistent with their existence and is difficult to explain otherwise, but consistency is not proof, and this page does not treat it as proof.

Remedies and practical next steps

These are options, not legal advice. A requester should consult a Michigan attorney about deadlines and strategy. Because the 2025 deadlines described above have passed, the options are divided between what remains available on this request and what a fresh request could accomplish.

If the deposit was never paid and no appeal was filed

1. Confirm the request's status in writing. Ask the FOIA coordinator whether the office treated the request as abandoned under MCL 15.234(14), and on what date. A written answer either revives the file or documents its closure.
2. Submit a fresh request. A new request restarts every clock. It should be narrowed (see below) and should again ask for an estimate before processing.
3. Consider paying a reduced amount under protest. A requester who pays the deposit does not waive the right to challenge the fee; MCL 15.240a permits a fee appeal and a civil action, and payment is not a concession that the amount was lawful. Paying preserves the production while the dispute proceeds.

If the deposit was paid

1. Demand the records or a written explanation. The extended production date was July 9, 2025. If records were not produced, ask for them and for a statement of the reason for delay.
2. Ask for the wage basis and record count. Request the hourly wage, the employee classification used, and the number of responsive records and pages. These are the facts needed to test the estimate against MCL 15.234(1) and (2).
3. Ask whether the records were previously redacted. If they were, MCL 15.234(1)(b) bars charging for redaction labor a second time, and the $744.00 line should be removed.

For any future request on this subject

1. Ask for the records, not the report — but name the system. The 25-118 approach worked in the sense that it avoided a nonexistence denial. The next iteration should go further and name the specific record series: case-disposition reports, sentencing orders, plea and dismissal orders, or the case-management system's disposition export.
2. Use the courts as a parallel source. Delta County Circuit Court and the 94th District Court maintain public dockets and case records. Register of actions entries typically show charges, pleas, dispositions, and sentence dates. Much of what the prosecutor's office would have to search case files to assemble may already be available from the courts at low or no cost.
3. Ask for a volume estimate before a fee estimate. Request that the office state the number of responsive records and pages before quoting labor. A coordinator who cannot state a volume cannot justify an hours-based estimate.
4. Request a fee waiver in the public interest. MCL 15.234(2) permits a body to waive or reduce fees where furnishing the records "can be considered as primarily benefiting the general public." A request that frames the records as serving a public accountability purpose, and that is published, has a stronger waiver argument than one that does not.
5. Preserve every deadline. The two clocks that matter are the 45-day deposit deadline under MCL 15.234(14) and the 45-day fee-action deadline under MCL 15.240a(1)(b). Both ran from the same June 2025 notice and both expired August 12, 2025. Missing either one ends the request without a decision on the merits.
6. Keep the paper. The fax receipt, the extension notice, and the itemization are the whole case on timing. This file is unusually well documented, and that documentation is what makes the procedural analysis possible.

Authorities and sources

Documents

These are redacted copies prepared for publication. Requester names, home addresses, personal phone numbers, and email addresses have been removed. Unredacted originals are not hosted on the public web server.

Related FOIA requests

• FOIA 26-292 — FOIA 26-292: The office used the requester's own cost-saving clause to withdraw the request, then offered to grant it if he removed the clause (Granted in part, denied in part — no records produced; the office conceded the data exists and refused the aggregate on the ground that the requester's own scope limitation excluded it, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-291 — FOIA 26-291: The office answered a request for a privilege log with nine document titles — and cited a subsection of the FOIA that does not exist (Granted in part — a nine-row title-and-date table supplying two of the eleven requested fields, no count, and a citation to a subsection of MCL 15.243 that does not exist, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-290 — FOIA 26-290: The office refused the victim-services records because it says you already have them — from a packet that contained none (Refused — five paragraphs labelled “granted” but zero pages produced, on the authority of a prior production that contained no responsive documents; the sixth paragraph received no disposition, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-131 — FOIA 26-131: Twenty case files, priced at $82.66 before a single page is copied (Granted in part — release conditioned on a $41.33 deposit; no records produced yet, April 17, 2026)
• FOIA 26-35 — FOIA 26-35: The office counted 52 pleas in 85 minutes — eight days after saying the same kind of aggregate did not exist (Granted — 52 pleas reported from the District and Circuit Court dockets, no fee quoted, no exemption cited, no pages withheld; the count is over-inclusive by the office's own admission, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-34 — FOIA 26-34: The office denied a count of diversion cases by defining “diversion” down to a programme it does not run (Denied — certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.233(1), Denial Form box 2 checked, on the ground that the only diversion programme in Delta County is juvenile diversion administered by the Probate Court; no exemption cited, no fee quoted, no waiver determination, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-33 — FOIA 26-33: Asked to count deferred prosecution agreements, the office certified the total nonexistent and priced the underlying data at $9,093.33 (Granted in part and denied in part — the aggregate record denied as requiring creation of a new record, with a certificate of nonexistence and Denial Form box 2 checked; the underlying data granted subject to a $9,093.33 estimate, a $4,546.66 deposit and a 270-day production estimate; public-interest fee waiver left undetermined, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-32 — FOIA 26-32: What the office's own memos say about the migration that broke its records — a 95-page production that answers its own denial (Granted in part, denied in part — five records produced across 95 pages, with only personal contact information redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a); no fee quoted, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-31 — FOIA 26-31: Asked how many crime scenes a prosecutor attended, the office listed eight documents and denied them as duplicative (Denied in full — refused as a duplicative request under Densmore v Department of Corrections, on the ground that the eight listed records were already produced in response to FOIA 25-267; Denial Form box 1 checked with the section 13 subsection left blank; no aggregate figure supplied and no fee quoted, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-30 — FOIA 26-30: Eight documents, one number, and a Densmore refusal built on a premise the record does not fully support (Denied — no aggregate total produced; eight responsive documents identified but not reproduced under a Densmore prior-production rationale; no fee quoted, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-29 — FOIA 26-29: A count of inherited convictions the office could not locate — priced at $1,033.33 for the work of counting (No count produced — office could not locate a record; underlying data granted subject to segregation and priced at $1,033.33 with a $516.66 deposit, February 5, 2026)
• FOIA 26-28 — FOIA 26-28: A headcount of cases open when the prosecutor took office — denied, then priced at $1,653.33 on an 800-file baseline (Denied in part, granted in part — no record states the headcount, with a certificate of nonexistence; underlying data granted subject to segregation and priced at $1,653.33 with an $826.66 deposit, February 5, 2026)
• FOIA 26-22 — FOIA 26-22: A conviction rate the office says does not exist, priced at $9,548 (Denied — record does not exist; $9,548 quote for the underlying files, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 26-21 — FOIA 26-21: A count of convictions the office says does not exist — then a quiet amendment that changed the number behind the bill (Denied as a compilation — no count produced; fee of $9,548.00 quoted for underlying files; amended response revised the volume figure without explanation, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 26-20 — FOIA 26-20: The aggregate case total, and the records that would let you count it (Denied — record does not exist, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 25-279 — FOIA 25-279: The office granted the personnel and budget records on paper — then sent three invoices totaling $34,673.79 and none of the records (Granted in part on paper — dozens of records listed as enclosed and none enclosed; three cost itemizations totaling $34,673.79, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-278 — FOIA 25-278: The office says it never tracked plea bargaining — then bills $23,146.66 for a 4,000-file review it says is already covered by another invoice (Granted in part — 62 trials produced from the calendar; plea-offer data certified not to exist; a $23,146.66 estimate the office says is moot if the twin invoice is paid, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-277 — FOIA 25-277: No annual statistical report exists, the underlying data does, and the office prices it at $34,720 (Granted in part — no statistical report exists; the underlying data is granted at a $34,720 estimate built on a volume figure the office has never counted, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-257 — FOIA 25-257: Three certificates of nonexistence, then a $19,840 bill to rebuild the data by hand (Denied — three certificates of nonexistence, with a $19,840 estimate to rebuild the same data by hand, October 31, 2025)
• FOIA 25-254 — FOIA 25-254: Two certificates of nonexistence, two documents produced, and a $74,520 itemization copied from an earlier request (Granted in part, denied in part — two documents produced, two certificates of nonexistence, and a $74,520 estimate identical to FOIA 25-244's, October 31, 2025)
• FOIA 25-244 — FOIA 25-244: Ten service slips, thirteen policy manuals, and a $74,520 quote (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-241 — FOIA 25-241: The special-prosecutor petition the office filed, and the 2024 memo that says it did not need another one (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-240 — FOIA 25-240: Officer use-of-force referrals, and the $1,863 bill for the one part the office would search (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-239 — FOIA 25-239: The Brady/Giglio list and how the office tracks officer credibility (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-234 — FOIA 25-234: Four lab reports, two certificates, and 26.4 grams where the press said four ounces (Granted in part, October 1, 2025)
• FOIA 25-202 — FOIA 25-202: No RFP, no bid, no purchase order — and the emails that show how the system was picked (Granted in part, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-201 — FOIA 25-201: ProsecutorByKarpel contracts, invoices, and licensing (Granted in part, denied in part, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-200 — FOIA 25-200: The software the office runs on — seven systems named, one of them retired in June 2024 (Granted in full, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-197 — FOIA 25-197: A request for complaints against the office came back as the office's own civil-rights lawsuits (Granted in part, denied in part, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-196 — FOIA 25-196: Audits of the office, 2019 through 2024 — five county financial statements produced, two fiscal years missing (Granted in part — five annual county financial statements produced; fiscal years 2022 and 2024 absent from the release; no exemption cited and no certificate of nonexistence, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-195 — FOIA 25-195: Reports on the office's own work — four case-tracking reports produced, performance reviews certified nonexistent, county reports withheld as attorney-client (Granted in part and denied in part — ten documents produced; county reports withheld on attorney-client privilege; performance reviews certified nonexistent; $5,961.60 estimated, $2,980.80 deposit, 270 days, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-194 — FOIA 25-194: Every email and text the Prosecutor sent in 2024 — a $63,028.80 estimate on a request the requester offered to narrow (Granted in part and denied in part — exemptions cited; $63,028.80 estimated, $31,514.40 deposit required, 270 days, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-215 — FOIA 25-215: Three answers to one request — two certificates of nonexistence, a grant, and a $13,248 estimate (Granted in part, August 9, 2025)
• FOIA 25-180 — FOIA 25-180: Two boxes checked — the trial records both “already provided” and “do not exist” (Denied in full — certificate of nonexistence plus an exemption box checked; no fee, no pages produced, August 2, 2025)
• FOIA 25-139 — FOIA 25-139: Forfeitures in cases that ended without a conviction, certified not to exist — while the same office took an extension for the volume of records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-137 — FOIA 25-137: The average time from charge to disposition, certified not to exist — after a ten-day extension for “voluminous” records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-136 — FOIA 25-136: The plea-agreement count the office certified does not exist — after taking an extension for the volume of records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-135 — FOIA 25-135: The office denied the 2024 trial summary as a record that “does not exist” — then produced eight case files on the next page (Granted in part — 8 case files produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-134 — FOIA 25-134: The dismissed-case count the office certified does not exist — after taking an extension for the volume of records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-133 — FOIA 25-133: The office certified the monthly count did not exist — then attached an annual one and offered to sell the underlying data for $2,815.20 (Granted in part — one annual screening table produced; monthly counts withheld; $2,815.20 quoted with a $1,407.60 deposit, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-129 — FOIA 25-129: Arraignment-to-disposition times the office certified do not exist, then priced at $2,931.12 (Granted in part — two items denied as nonexistent; $2,931.12 quote on the third, June 26, 2025)
• FOIA 25-94 — Prosecutor Case Outcome Statistics, 2021–2025 (Granted in Part, May 23, 2025)