Intimate e-mails between the former Arapahoe County clerk and his deputy are private and not subject to state open-record laws, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday.
Former Clerk Tracy Baker and Leesa Sale exchanged the often sexually explicit e-mails at work using public equipment.
But the court ruled the law includes only those records that a public agency generates during the normal course of business.
The only purpose of making the e-mails public would be to shed light “on the extent of Baker and Sales’ fluency with sexually explicit terminology and to satisfy the prurient interests of the public and press,” Justice Alex Martinez wrote.
Martinez compared the e-mails to using a work telephone for personal calls, but Chris Beall, who represented the Colorado Press Association, disagreed.
“When public officials do that on county equipment, and they do this on public time, and they are told that the county has the right to access any e-mail or any use of the computer, there is no expectation of privacy,” he said.
Arapahoe County commissioners got the e-mails during a 2002 probe of Baker’s office. Voters removed Baker in February 2004.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
