But in Maryland, it’s a different story.
If you want to see court documents related to the 2015 death of Freddie Gray following his police arrest, for example, you’ll find only general case information online, like party names, the open or closed status of the case, and the types of charges against officers — but no charging documents. To obtain more detailed information, you’d have to visit the courthouse during business hours, or make a public records request.
Court access advocates and journalists laud the benefits of allowing the public to remotely view court records, saying it increases transparency and accommodates timely reporting on newsworthy events.
But court administrators and some Maryland state’s attorneys urge caution, noting that remote access can make it harder to protect confidential information that is accidentally left unredacted, like Social Security numbers. Some critics also say a transition to public, remote access could increase court administrative costs, while others say that’s not necessarily the case.
Currently in Maryland, remote, electronic access to court records is available only to attorneys and case parties, per the recently completed statewide integration of Maryland Electronic Court, or MDEC, this past May. For the general public, the state offers Maryland Judiciary Case Search, allowing searches by name, date and county. The database provides only basic information about a case, not detailed charging documents or complaints.
A public information officer for the Maryland Judiciary did not respond in June when asked about the possibility of public, remote access to electronic court records.
MDEC was a “key step” toward increasing online, public access to court records, said Fritz Mulhauser, who serves on the board of directors of the Council for Court Excellence, which aims to improve the justice system in Washington, D.C.
But Mulhauser and other court transparency advocates are critical of the remaining limitations on public, remote access — referring to this as “practical obscurity.”
“The Supreme Court — and other courts — have felt squeamish allowing ‘jammie surfers’ to freely search court records from their basements, snooping through divorce files and convictions of their co-workers, neighbors and family members,” said David Cuillier of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project, in an email. “So, they have said that if you really want to see the records, you have to trudge down to the courthouse and go to the hassle to look them up.”
The effort to increase court record access is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit in Maryland filed in U.S. District Court. Courthouse News Service, a California-based organization, sued Maryland’s state court administrator and county clerks in 2022, alleging they violated the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution by not providing contemporaneous access to public court records, and specifically, new civil complaints.
Both sides submitted a court filing in late October saying they’ve reached an “agreement” in the case, but no details have been released.
When it comes to criminal cases, a handful of Maryland state’s attorneys expressed varied degrees of support for remote record access, while also highlighting the need to shield sensitive information, such as bank accounts and Social Security numbers.
In a June interview, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger, a Democrat, expressed concerns about victims of gang violence and sex offenses having their personal information exposed online if Maryland adopts remote access to court records, saying there’s no “guarantee” this won’t happen.
But if people’s personal information is protected, then remote access is “certainly something that I can support,” Shellenberger said in a later interview that month.
A recent analysis from the Federal Judicial Center, a U.S. government agency, examined how often Social Security numbers appear in federal court records, finding that, out of nearly 4.7 million documents filed on 37 randomly selected days, 0.1% contained at least one un-redacted Social Security number. Seventeen documents contained nearly half of the un-redacted Social Security numbers.
Restricting access to public records based on a very small percentage of documents where sensitive information is accidentally exposed, isn’t good public policy, said Josh Blandi of UniCourt, a platform providing access to litigation data from state and federal courts.
“It’s kind of like saying, ‘We shouldn’t drive because some people get in accidents sometimes,’” Blandi said.
It’s unclear how many states allow public, remote access to court records — and to what extent. Per a 2017 survey prepared by the Council for Court Excellence, respondents in 21 states said they provided some form of electronic access, including 18 that provided court dockets and several that provided party filings, opinions, orders and judgments.
Some courts and attorneys use artificial intelligence technology to assist with redaction tasks, but it’s “not a magic bullet,” said Jannet Okazaki, with the National Center for State Courts. There’s a lot of human training required to help the machine learn to recognize what information to redact. However, it does make the job faster, she said.
Another consideration is cost. Arguing on behalf of Maryland’s court administrator in the case brought by the Courthouse News Service, lawyers said that implementing an electronic “press queue” system — where members of the media could have immediate access to newly filed complaints — would cost at least $108,000 per year. They cited Tyler Technologies, a vendor that services Maryland’s e-filing system.
But electronic court projects don’t always have to be outsourced. Minnesota’s recent transition to remote access was handled in-house with preexisting staff and no outside vendors, said Kyle Christopherson, a communications specialist for Minnesota courts.
Document costs also can serve as a transparency barrier. In Maryland, copies of court documents are $0.50 per page. The Council for Court Excellence survey found that states operating their own systems with court staff tended not to charge document fees, while the opposite was true for those that hired vendors.
When court records are free, it also increases privacy, since lawyers will be more careful to redact, argues Mike Lissner of the Free Law Project.
“If you have a system that has some amount of obscurity and some amount of privacy, lawyers will think it’s private, and they will do a bad job redacting,” he said.
There’s another problem with making public court records hard to access, Cuillier said: a widened “knowledge gap” between those who have resources and knowledge to maneuver through the courthouse, and those who don’t.
“The fact is, a public record is a public record,” he said, “and it is time the courts acknowledge the value of people being able to easily interact with their government.”
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