Police videos of deadly shootings in New Jersey should be made public within 20 days in most cases under a directive from the state's new attorney general, whose office has long resisted releasing such recordings.

State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, the state's top law enforcement official, said Monday the move is meant to bolster public trust in police shooting inquiries -- among the most fraught and high-profile investigations authorities handle.

It follows a state Supreme Court ruling last year which found the news media had a right to obtain dashboard video of a police shooting under New Jersey's common law right of access, one of two provisions that govern public records.

In recent years, police shootings have been the subject of widespread public scrutiny amid a national debate over police use of force. Here in New Jersey, police agencies have resisted releasing such videos by invoking an exemption in the state's Open Public Records Act that applies to criminal investigatory records.

Under the directive, police dashboard and body-worn camera footage will "presumptively" be released upon request by the media or members of the public once the initial investigation is "substantially complete" -- typically within 20 days.

But the order, which still needs to be approved by an advisory committee on court rules at the state judiciary, carves out a number of exceptions that would allow officials at the Attorney General's Office or county prosecutors to withhold shooting videos.

The directive instructs police and prosecutors to consult with people captured on video as well as their families before deciding to release it. It also allows them to consider potential threats to an officer's life in weighing whether to release footage of a fatal shooting.

"It's good that there's a presumption of disclosure," said CJ Griffin, one of the attorneys who won the Supreme Court case, known as North Jersey Media Group v. Lyndhurst.

But, she added, the new directive does little to expand public access already granted by the Supreme Court in the Lyndhurst case, noting that the directive only applies to instances of "deadly force," which comprise "a very small percentage" of police encounters.

Grewal said the directive is part of a broader effort to review "what further safeguards are needed, what reporting mechanisms are used, and how the information is reviewed" in police shooting cases

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.