§ 140B.057.Documentary Material

How a document demand is performed, on terms more favourable to the producing party than the power itself suggests.

Material is made available to the attorney general or local prosecutor, as applicable, during normal business hours on the return date, at the person’s principal office or place of business or as agreed.

"As applicable" is the drafting device running through this subchapter, and it means the office that issued the demand is the one entitled to inspect. A demand from one prosecutor does not open the records to another.

The producing party keeps the documents. Nothing is handed over; the office comes to inspect and copy, and bears the expense of copying.

Copies may be substituted for originals if the originals are made available for inspection, so a business is not deprived of records it needs to operate.

The office may elect to obtain or review information in an electronic format — the realistic route where the material is a system rather than a file.

Flagging confidential material is mandatory: the person shall indicate in writing which, if any, of the documents produced contain trade secrets or confidential information.

Doing that carefully is more important here than under the older chapter. The confidentiality section permits disclosure to other agencies and to political subdivisions, and a written designation is what identifies the material that most needs protecting.

Production must be made under a sworn certificate in the designated form, by a natural person having knowledge of the facts and circumstances, stating that all requested material in the person’s possession, custody, or control has been produced.

Choosing that individual deserves thought. They swear to the completeness of a search they may not have run, and an incomplete production certified as complete is the conduct the offense section reaches.