§ 8.01-622.2.Injunction against disclosure of criminal investigative file materials under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.

Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act generally opens government records to public request, and § 2.2-3706.1 addresses criminal investigative files specifically. This section gives a court a tool to block disclosure of those records in appropriate cases, while carving out disclosures required under certain listed FOIA subdivisions that fall outside the injunction remedy entirely.

Before entering the injunction, the court has to work through a defined list of considerations and put its findings on the record rather than ruling from the bench without explanation. It weighs whether disclosure would unreasonably invade personal privacy, whether it would endanger someone’s life or physical safety, and whether it would subject the victim — or, where the victim has died or is a minor, the victim’s immediate family or parent or guardian, so long as that person is not a suspect — to severe mental or emotional distress. A catch-all factor lets the court weigh anything else it finds relevant.

The structure reflects a real tension between public access to records and the privacy of people touched by violent crime, and it channels that fight through the same injunction framework the rest of Chapter 24 establishes, rather than creating a freestanding FOIA remedy.