ACLU Files Lawsuit Against Essex County Sheriff's Department

The Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Essex County Sheriff's Department.

The group said the department was violating Vermont's public records law, but the sheriff has a different interpretation of the rule.

This comes as the ACLU attempts to review a report alleging the sheriff's department is not complying with Vermont's fair and impartial policing policy.

The ACLU requested copies of communications between the department and federal immigration officials.

“This information indicated that the sheriff's department was naturally turning people over to federal immigration authorities if they suspected they were here without authorization,” said Lia Ernst, legal director of the ACLU Vermont. “We have requested records showing contact between the Sheriff’s Department and ICE and CBP.”

Vermont law limits when local and state law enforcement can provide information about a person to federal immigration authorities.

“It says explicitly that civil immigration enforcement is simply not the job of state and local law enforcement,” Ernst said.

Court documents show that in a series of emails, Trevor Colby, the Essex County sheriff, invited Ernst to the department to review the requested records in person and take a tour. However, the ACLU declined this offer.

“Our consistent process has been to allow viewing in our office during normal business hours, as permitted by law,” Colby said in an April email.

The Vermont Public Records Act states in part:

“If an agency maintains public records in electronic form, the nonexempt public records must be available for copying in either the standard electronic format or the standard paper format, as designated by the party requesting the records. If the party requesting the records, an agency may, but is not required to, provide copies of public records in a non-standard format, create a public record, or convert paper public records to electronic format (1 VSA § 316(i)). )

The ACLU believes that requiring applicants to come in person is against the law and unfair.

“Essex County told us that this is their policy and practice, that this is what they do for every applicant,” Ernst said. “We're asking the court to ban this policy or practice, tell them you can't do this anymore.”

The ACLU is also asking the court to require the Sheriff's Department to cover all of the ACLU's legal fees in this case and to disclose these documents electronically.

“We have no idea what is in these files at this stage, of course it could show that we were wrong and that there is no policy, nor practice, nor custom of violation of fair and impartial police policy,” Ernst said. “Or it could show us that, you know, they're routinely turning people over to ICE without any justification or cause.”

NBC5 spoke with Colby on Tuesday, he declined an on-camera interview.

Instead, he said the department was beginning to prepare the documents to send when a federal partner stepped in and said it couldn't release them.

Colby said the department would not make additional comments on the lawsuit until it meets with legal counsel.

As of this writing, no date has been set for the trial to proceed to Washington County Superior Court.