Court knocks down price of Metro photos

Tuesday, June 5, 2001 | 9:30 a.m.

When Las Vegas attorney Don Campbell was told that Metro Police was charging him $1,700 for 425 crime-scene photographs to use in a civil case, he said no way.

"I said I wasn't going to pay it, and I took them to court," Campbell said.

Discovery Commissioner Thomas Biggar agreed with Campbell and reduced Metro's $4-a-photo charge to 30 cents a photo.

As a result, Campbell will pay $127.50 for the photos in a wrongful death suit.

Campbell said that the state law that applies to public records deals only with reimbursing an agency for the cost of reproducing the materials and should not include an employee's hourly wage because that already is paid for by taxpayers.

Campbell based the 30-cent price on what local photo shops charge for copies.

Metro Criminalistics Bureau Capt. Greg McCurdy said his department will comply with the order, but he noted that Biggar's decision was "case specific" to this incident and will not apply to other requests.

McCurdy said the time and materials that go into preparing such photos for public requests at a quality level sufficient for court cases goes beyond the duties of photo technicians who are paid by tax dollars primarily to process film for police cases.

"This is not like going to a one-hour photo lab," McCurdy said. "The primary job of photo techs is to process film. If they have to stop regular production work for an extraordinary request, we see a backup of the process like processing film for crime scenes for homicide detectives and others.

"Our charges offset the cost of chemicals, the Kodak paper and the extra time above the techs' duty."