Ga. courts lag in technology and have harsh secrecy draft

SUMMER 2005 NEWSLETTER
GEORGIA FOI ACCESS
GEORGIA FIRST AMENDMENT FOUNDATION

Georgia's 1,100 trial courts have 'inadequate infrastructure,' and a harsh formula for future secrecy is pending in state Supreme Court  Meanwhile, all Northern District of Georgia filings "must be electronic' as of July 15

By Tom Bennett

Atlanta, July 11, 2005 – Georgia’s courts lack any statewide or even circuit-wide system "that allows data to be exchanged seamlessly."

There is a "tremendous range of technological sophistication within each class of court."  Furthermore, change is needed now "in the state's 1,00 trial courts."  These are among the problems cited in the sobering 2005 Court Information Technology Report on the Georgia Supreme Court web site.

The document is called "Embracing information technology in Georgia," and was written by the Supreme Court Committee on Court Technology. This group was appointed in Dec. 2003 and met for 14 months.  "There is an inadequate infrastructure in Georgia courts, "according to the report.  "The Georgia Crime Information Center legally mandated requirements of automated submission of data arrests and dispositions may not be met."

DRAFT POLICY ON ELECTRONIC ACCESS

Against this backdrop of court backwardness in technology, the Metropolitan Court Clerks Task Force on Internet Access to Court Records covered itself against the worst-case scenario. It drafted in 2000 a harsh suggested plan for court secrecy. The draft plan lacks even a one-sentence concession that Georgia began working on open government in 1959, codified Title 50 in 1981, and has had a series of pro-openness state Supreme Court rulings.

Instead, it is a laundry list of what to deny to reporters. Clerks would be held liable for accidental disclosure. Among documents it would place off limits are "any records to which public access is prohibited by U.S. or Georgia statutes, or which have been ordered ... to be expunged or sealed." The draft policy on access then goes out of its way to identify 11 document types as "public," but states they "will not be available for public access on the Internet."

At this writing none of the task force’s provisions are to be found in the "Media rules" section of the Rules of the Georgia Supreme Court.

At the 2005 Georgia Bar, Media and Judiciary Conference in January, Muscogee County's Linda Pierce, chair of the task force, offered to re-open discussion of the draft access policy with the media.

In the Summer of 2000, Georgia FOI Access reported how Telfair County Superior Court declined to add a FAX for at least tele-copying to Atlanta of its civil cases, because it said it had no room in the McRae courthouse for the machine.

The 1994 Georgia decision Jersawitz v. Hicks, established that although a database of real estate records is a public record, clerks aren't required to create a program to provide public access with personal computers, according to Rogers Chalmers of Arnall, Golden & Gregory.

The legislature amended the Open Records Act to provide that "records maintained by computer shall be made available by electronic means, including Internet access," Chalmers told the 2005 Bar Media conference.  "This change makes it potentially faster and easier for citizens to access government records," Chalmers said.  "Presumably, custodians of the records can download the requested information onto disk, CD or DVD; make it available over the Internet; or send it by e-mail."

IN STARK CONTRAST, effective this week, on July 15, 2005, all U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia filings "must be electronic," according to Standing Order No. 02-01 and cited in Roger Chalmers' Bar Media Conference comments.  The attorneys "are responsible for excluding personal identifiers," and if they mistakenly include any, they can call the court and request that the clerk "hide the information which they will do for 24 hours so that a motion can be filed to seal."

An island of upgraded court technology in Georgia is the web site of the Superior Court of Cobb County. Clerk Jay Stephenson's model site connotes an understanding of the spirit of Georgia openness . It signals to Cobb Countians that a move toward disclosure has occurred in this state. Its deep access provisions begin with the home page’s clicks for searches of civil cases, criminal cases, attorneys, the notary public database, and the court calendar.