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Sunday, November 27, 2005

Courts - Kentucky website on courts criticized, compared

Two entries down, the ILB writes about the federal PACER system and compares it to the Indiana effort, that has yet to get off the ground.

But then there is Kentucky. According to an informative report today in the Louisville Courier Journal, by Andrew Wolfson:

Kentucky has put court records online for the public, but the state's new Web site provides virtually no useful information, some users say.

The Administrative Office of the Courts' "Kentucky Court Records Online," launched this month, provides the name of defendants and case numbers -- and, in some instances, the next court date -- but no information about charges, dispositions, filings or previous hearings.

Businesses and nonprofit groups who use court records say the Kentucky site provides little meaningful information, especially compared with other sites, some of which offer the complete text of every pleading.

Frieda Cox, the state chairwoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said that when she looked up defendants, she couldn't tell whether they had "a DUI or a 'cold check' case."

John Nelson, the managing editor of the Advocate-Messenger in Danville and immediate past president of the Kentucky Press Association, called the site "completely useless."

Here is a link to the Kentucky site.

The story reports that there is a rationale behind the limited information on the Kentucky site:

Ed Crockett, the court agency's manager of pretrial services, said the site's purpose is to let people check for their next court date -- not to provide an online record of what has happened in court.

He said state court officials continue to oppose placing substantive information online because of concerns about invasion of privacy and identify theft.

"People come to court to resolve issues," he said, "not to have information about their case published over the World Wide Web."

The agency does offer detailed case information online to lawyers and police, but Crockett said they are "business customers" of the court. The same records could be provided online to the public, he said, "but the fact you can do it doesn't mean you should."

The report continues:
Court records long have been publicly available at the courthouse, but until the emergence of the Internet, they were protected by what is known as "practical obscurity" -- the time and energy it takes to look them up.

The ability to provide remote access to sometimes intensely personal information has prompted a nationwide debate, but some states and counties have placed court information online on the theory that if the records are public, they should be as public as possible. * * *

In Iowa, a free statewide court site that offers a wide array of information about pending and resolved cases gets 350,000 visits a day, said Rebecca Colton, executive assistant to the chief justice

The site provides information withheld from Kentucky's Web page, including ages and criminal charges, but Colton said it has produced no known instances of identity theft. She said that while some people would prefer that their record not be listed, the system has produced fewer complaints than expected.

The Iowa site allows residents to follow developments in high-profile cases, such as the sexual abuse and murder of a 10-year-old girl in Cedar Rapids last March that has prompted calls for the reinstatement of the state's death penalty. * * *

In a study published in 2003 based on interviews with 4,000 people, the Federal Trade Commission concluded that public records of all forms -- including those offered online -- played an insignificant role in causing identity theft.

Shannon Ragland, who publishes civil jury verdict reports in Kentucky and three other states, contrasted Kentucky's site with those in other jurisdictions, such as the federal courts, which provide access to every pleading. The federal system, known as PACER, requires lawyers to remove Social Security numbers and other personal information before filing documents.

Ragland said Kentucky's performance is noteworthy because the state was once at the forefront of court technology.

A side-bar provides an online comparison between the Kentucky and Iowa sites.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 27, 2005 09:07 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts