§ 3-03 Municipal Archives Guidelines for Archival Use of District Attorney Records.
RCNY § 3-03
A. The Municipal Archives preserves and makes available for research the closed case files of the five New York District Attorneys. In accordance with the duly promulgated record retention schedule for this series, the closed case files are transferred to the Municipal Archives for permanent preservation twenty-five years after the date (year) of indictment. B. The regulations governing public access to all archival material are set forth in 49 RCNY § 3-01. In addition to those regulations, public access to District Attorney case files that are less than fifty years old (from the year of indictment) are governed by the following regulations and/or procedures: (1) For requests to examine records in case files that are less than fifty years old (from the date of indictment), the Municipal Archives Director, or an authorized staff member, will submit to the office of the District Attorney which created or completed the records ("DA") the following information: name of researcher and affiliation, if any, subject and purpose of Research, case file number(s) and name(s) of defendant(s). The Municipal Archives Director or authorized staff member will submit this information to the DA prior to granting the researcher access to the requested records. The DA will be permitted to examine the material in the requested file(s) and separate any items as to which (a) public disclosure is prohibited by statute or court order (e.g. minutes of Grand Jury proceedings); or (b) disclosure would threaten the life or safely of any person, such as information about confidential informants or undercover law enforcement personnel. The Municipal Archives will not permit access to any items separated by the DA from other items in the file. The DA will have five business days (from the date of notification that the case file is available) in which to conduct a case file review. If the DA declines to conduct a review, the requested case file materials will be made available to the researcher in accordance with regulations governing public access to all Archival material set forth in 49 RCNY § 3-01.
(2)For all case files regardless of age, the Municipal Archives will not permit access to minutes of Grand Jury proceedings or any other records when disclosure is prohibited by statute or court order. The Municipal Archives will also consider requests by the DA to maintain the confidentiality of records whose age is greater than 50 years when exceptional circumstances warrant granting such request. (Amended City Record 4/5/2022, eff. 5/5/2022)
