The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has agreed to participate in mediation with PGN, in order to resolve a dispute involving access to records pertaining to the Nizah Morris incident.
Earlier this month, the D.A.’s Office accepted PGN’s offer to participate in mediation.
The mediation is sponsored by the state Office of Open Records. The session will be non-binding and closed to the public. All discussions during the session will be confidential.
But if a settlement is reached, that outcome will be publicly acknowledged by the OOR.
Deadlines in the dispute have been postponed for at least 30 days, to allow time for the mediation to take place.
If an OOR mediator feels that more than one session will be productive, both sides can participate in multiple sessions.
Morris was a trans woman found with a fatal head wound in 2002, shortly after a Center City “courtesy ride” from Philadelphia police. Her homicide remains unsolved, and advocates are pushing for state and/or federal probes.
PGN is seeking a certified copy of all Morris 911 recordings in the D.A.’s possession. But so far, the office has declined to comply with the request.
In November, the D.A.’s Office provided a non-certified copy of a document that’s believed to be a transcript of some Morris 911 recordings.
The document initially was given to the D.A.’s Office by PGN in 2010.
PGN has another pending open-records request with the D.A.’s Office — for a certified copy of dispatch records pertaining to the Morris incident.
In August, the OOR ordered the D.A.’s Office to provide a certified copy of its Morris dispatch records, but the D.A.’s Office refused to do so.
In that dispute, the D.A.’s Office declined PGN’s offer to participate in mediation. Instead, the D.A.’s Office filed an appeal in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, where the matter remains pending.
In both pending requests, PGN is seeking certified records, because it wants to ensure that a D.A. staffer who handles the requests has actual knowledge of the Morris records in the agency’s possession.
The state Right-to-Know Law allows a requester to seek certified copies of agency records. But the D.A.’s Office has argued that if it simply returns a record to a requester, it doesn’t have to certify the record.