AUSTIN, Texas _ A dashboard camera video of country music star Randy Travis' Aug. 7, 2012, arrest for driving while intoxicated is a public record that must be released, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.
Travis' lawyer, Marty Cirkiel of Round Rock, said the decision will be appealed because of its effect on the privacy rights of people with mental health and medical issues.
Department of Public Safety troopers called to a one-car wreck outside of Tioga, about 60 miles north of Dallas, found a naked Travis lying in the farm-to-market road, and tests later showed he had a blood-alcohol level above 0.15, almost double the legal limit to drive.
Travis also was accused of threatening to kill arresting officers, but that charge was dropped in exchange for his guilty plea to driving while intoxicated.
Afterward, copies of the video were requested under the state Public Information Act. Travis objected, but then-Attorney General Greg Abbott's office said state law required the video to be made public. Abbott added, however, that images of Travis' unclothed body from the waist down were protected by his privacy interests and had to be redacted.
Travis filed suit in Travis County to withhold the video, but state District Judge Stephen Yelenosky sided with Abbott.
Lawyers for Travis next turned to the Austin-based state 3rd Court of Appeals, arguing that public-information laws exempt the video from release because it depicts his medical and mental conditions. Travis also said his privacy rights required the video to remain confidential because his actions were involuntary and unknowing, arguing that he was "exhausted, intoxicated, sleep-deprived, medicated and suffering from a post-collision concussion," court records show.
Writing for the appeals court's three-judge panel, Chief Justice Jeff Rose said the video didn't fall within state law's medical exemptions. He also rejected the claim that Travis was acting involuntarily, noting that privacy protections don't normally apply to actions taken in a public place.
"Even if we assume that the contents of the redacted dashboard recording contain information that is highly intimate and embarrassing to Travis, those facts were not private as a matter of law because Travis put himself in public by driving unclothed while intoxicated," Rose wrote.
Travis will ask all six judges on the 3rd Court to reconsider the opinion, Cirkiel said. If that's unsuccessful, Travis will turn to the Texas Supreme Court, he said.
"I don't think the public has a right to see individuals in the course of a mental health breakdown any more than they have the right to see someone in the course of an operation on their heart, kidney or brain," Cirkiel said. "To intrude upon a person who's discombobulated due to a mental health issue or a concussion, I don't think the public interest stretches that far."
