Highway Patrol asks lawmakers to let agencies withhold crash and sensitive body-camera images; trial group urges caution

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard competing testimony on Senate Bill 2083, a measure the North Dakota Highway Patrol requested to allow agencies to withhold or redact certain crash‑scene and body‑camera images.

The Highway Patrol’s chief of staff, Aaron Hummel, told the committee the bill would give agencies discretion to withhold or redact images that show people in highly vulnerable states — for example, seriously injured or deceased crash victims — and to protect minors and other sensitive images from public release.

Hummel said the change would close gaps in the current open‑records framework. “Body cams are catching a whole new aspect that law enforcement didn’t catch in the past,” he said, adding that modern software permits selective blurring or masking rather than withholding entire files. Hummel walked the panel through current statutory exemptions and argued the new language would extend protections to images showing serious injury or death regardless of whether medical care is being administered when the image was recorded.

Why it matters: proponents said the bill would prevent graphic crash photos and videos from being posted publicly without an agency review, protecting victims’ privacy and dignity.

The North Dakota Association for Justice opposed the bill as written. Jackie Hall, the association’s executive director, said the proposed exemption language is too broad and could limit defendants’ or litigants’ access to evidence in criminal or civil proceedings. “Our concern lies with the distribution of the exempt record at the discretion of the public entity and the ability to obtain these images in a civil or criminal case,” Hall said, noting that discovery and judicial processes currently provide access to many such records.

Hall also flagged the bill’s reliance on the statutory definition of “serious bodily injury,” which she said can include broken bones and other conditions that might reasonably appear in ordinary crash images. “Is it the attempt that if a crash photo or a video that shows someone with a broken leg, is that supposed to be exempt?” she asked.

Committee members queried Hummel about how the bill would affect privately captured images and drone footage. Hummel said images taken by private citizens would not gain law‑enforcement protections unless they fall under the criminal statutes already prohibiting nonconsensual creation or dissemination of certain intimate images. He said the patrol has had “close calls” in the past when, without discussion, they may have released records that should have remained private.

Major Hamon of the Highway Patrol told the committee that the bill seeks an “exempt” designation rather than making records “confidential,” and said the patrol is willing to confer further with the attorney general’s office and other stakeholders to clarify language.

What happened next: The committee held the bill for further work; members agreed to additional discussions between the Highway Patrol, the Attorney General’s Office and stakeholders to consider narrower language and clarify how discovery and subpoenas would operate under the change.

Ending note: Witnesses and members emphasized balancing victim privacy with the needs of prosecutors, defense counsel and civil litigants, and several senators asked the parties to work on more narrowly tailored language before the committee takes further action.