• Leslie Wilber •
• Originally published September 30, 2008 at 11:50 p.m., updated September 30, 2008 at 11:50 p.m.

Some e-mails and personnel records requested from the district attorney through an open-records query should be public, the Attorney General’s Office ruled recently.

Defense lawyer Scot Courtney asked for e-mails to and from District Attorney Stephen Tyler and his former chief of staff Michael Ratcliff. He also requested both men’s personnel files.

The Attorney General’s Sept. 25 decision was 10 pages long and complex. Assistant Criminal District Attorney Michael Kelly received his copy on Monday and on Tuesday afternoon he was still reviewing it to figure out what to release, he said.

The information wasn’t released initially because when Courtney requested it, handing it over could have hindered an investigation, Kelly said.

“You know what was going on with Ratcliff at that time,” Kelly said.

Courtney is representing police Lt. Ralph Buentello, who is accused of lying to the grand jury that charged Ratcliff, a former sheriff, with sexually assaulting a teenage boy.

Ratcliff later pleaded guilty to aggravated perjury.

Buentello, Police Chief Bruce Ure, former city attorney David Smith and Mayor Will Armstrong were charged with plotting to leak information about the investigation into Ratcliff, which they suspected was being covered up. Those charges were dropped Monday. Charges of aggravated perjury remain against Buentello, Ure and Smith.

“We’re not entitled to any of this in discovery, per se,” Courtney said of his request. “The e-mails could be pertinent to the investigation of Ratcliff. I want to know what’s going on.”

The district attorney’s office keeps deleted e-mails for a week, the attorney general’s letter says. Records that didn’t exist when Courtney requested them can’t be turned over, it says.

Each department in the county makes its own policy for saving e-mails, said Joyce Dean, director of administrative services. All the information in the county’s network is backed up for one week, she said.

The letter also orders Kelly to redact some information before releasing Tyler and Ratcliff’s files.

Courtney still has no idea what information he’ll get from his request, or if it will help Buentello’s defense, he said.

“How will this help us?” Courtney said. “I don’t know. But it should be available to view.”

Buentello, Ure and Smith are scheduled to appear in court at 1:30 p.m. Friday.

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