Court access policy drafted

CARSON CITY -- Inquiring minds seeking state judicial records under today's independently developed polices and procedures probably will encounter as many different sets of rules as there are courts.

A new draft proposal prepared by members of the Nevada judiciary and being circulated for discussion could make the process more uniform and easy to use by the public.

The draft model policy for accessing court documents has so far been circulating mainly among Nevada jurists.

Ron Titus, court administrator of the Administrative Office of the Courts, said the proposed policy has a long way to go before it can be considered for adoption. First, he said, it needs a much wider review, including by different public interest groups.

While primarily identifying the processes to be used to obtain court documents, the draft policy does identify types of court cases and specific documents that would not be considered public, including matters related to the internal deliberations of a court, personnel information that, if disclosed, would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, and a judge's notes, memoranda and research relating to the deliberative process.

Some of the types of cases that would be excluded from public access under the policy include adoptions, child abuse and neglect matters, juvenile delinquency and paternity.

Specific types of records that would not be open, in addition to home addresses and juror questionnaires, include criminal background check reports, custody investigation reports and genetic testing information.

"Nothing new is proposed to be closed off that I'm aware of, but we would want media input, and comments from privacy advocates as well, before we would take it any further," Titus said.

The laundry list of closed records has provoked some concern.

"Some parts of it read more like a closed court records policy," said Barry Smith, executive director of the Nevada Press Association. "It kind of takes a shotgun approach to closing a lot of records that might well end up being open in some circumstances."

The draft court records policy surfaced after it was provided to a panel of lawyers, judges, journalists and professionals who are working on the separate but related issue of when to seal court records. The Commission on Preservation, Access and Sealing of Court Records was created by the Supreme Court to make recommendations on the issue of which records, if any, should be sealed from public view.

Smith, a member of the sealed records panel, said he expects the group will take a look at the draft policy and likely offer some comments when it meets again in August.

The list of records specified in the policy that would not to be accessible to the public, such as juror questionnaires and home addresses, might be considered public in some circumstances, he said.

Completed juror questionnaires may not be considered by the courts as public, but what about the questions attorneys want to ask potential jurors, Smith asked.

There could be information that might not normally be public that is introduced at a trial that would become a part of a public court record, he said.

"You can see this is a policy written and designed for court personnel," Smith said. "Those looking at it from the outside will have a different view."

The draft records policy starts off with an introduction that says: "Historically, court records in Nevada have been presumed to be open for public access, unless those records fell into certain categories rendering those records confidential. The philosophy of open records is that government and the public interests are better served when records are open for public inspection."

The draft access policy was created by the Court Administration Committee of the State Judicial Council. The Court Administration Committee is made up primarily of justice court, district court and municipal court judges. The policy came originally from the National Center for State Courts.

As it stands now, individual courts have developed their own policies and procedures for the public to access public records, Titus said.

The policy could either be adopted as a model policy and made available for adoption by the different Nevada courts if they so choose, he said. Or it could be adopted statewide to provide more uniformity for public access. If the second option was pursued, the policy would be examined by a panel similar to the one looking at sealed court records, Titus said.

The purpose of the policy, as stated in the document, is to maximize accessibility to court records and promote government accountability while protecting individual privacy rights and proprietary business information.

Titus said some issues remain regarding court documents, with one being whether all information should be made available to the public via computer, or whether some data should only be made accessible with a courthouse visit.

Another issue is "data mining" when a business, such as a credit reporting company, might want an entire court database to look for information, such as judgments to include on a person's credit report.

Most such requests are denied by the courts now unless a company or individual can specify exactly what is being sought, Titus said.