The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that police body cam footage of Attorney General Aaron Ford in an incident involving his child and police cannot be turned over to a Republican political organization that sought the video through a public records request.

A three-justice panel of the state’s Supreme Court issued the ruling on Thursday, affirming a lower court’s decision to keep confidential body camera footage of an event involving Ford in November 2017 and requested by the Republican Attorney Generals Association (RAGA), which opposed the Democrat during the 2018 election.

RAGA — a political organization that supported Ford’s Republican opponent, Wes Duncan — said last year it had heard from a “credible,” unnamed anonymous source that Ford attempted to use his status of “authority as an elected official” to unduly influence an outcome involving police and his child. The group had submitted carefully tailored public records requests focused only on Ford that excluded any footage of minors, but was rejected by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as confidential because it involved children under the age of 18.

RAGA appealed the decision to the Supreme Court after a District Court judge upheld the police department’s position, and participated in oral arguments before the court in December 2019.

In the order, the three-justice panel rejected an argument made by RAGA that a failure of Las Vegas police to respond to their records request within the required five day period did not automatically waive rights of confidentiality related to the records.

“Waiving LVMPD’s assertion of confidentiality would lead to an absurd penalty resulting in the public disclosure of Nevadans’ private information solely because of LVMPD’s failure to respond,” they wrote in the order.

The court’s order does directly note that it considers bodycam footage from police officers subject to the state’s public records act, but that it was limited by existing portions of law granting confidentiality to juveniles and others.

“Without the Legislature’s express direction otherwise, we are unwilling to subject Nevadans to possibly having their statutorily protected information disclosed because it was captured on a police officer’s bodycam,” they wrote in the order.

Although RAGA had suggested that the court could order Metro to redact portions of the video involving juveniles, the Supreme Court justices — who noted they reviewed the bodycam footage in question — said that Ford’s appearance and communications made in the video are “inextricably commingled with the confidential juvenile justice information.”

However, the high court did find that the District Court abused its discretion in denying RAGA’s petition for related records, including the police report, witness and victim statements and other information related to the arrest. It remanded that portion of the case back to district court.

"AG Ford is not above the rule of law and should work with the Metropolitan Police Department to release this information," RAGA spokeswoman Kelly Laco said in an email. "The public deserves a higher level of transparency and accountability from their top law enforcement officer."

Updated at 12:06 p.m. to add a quote from RAGA.