The Salt Lake Tribune
Friday, October 10, 2008
Order in the court — if you can find it

It took a while, but the Uintah Basin Standard finally figured out why the attorney general raided the local school district.

Click here to read the Standard's article. What it took to get the story highlights some deficiencies in Utah's system for disclosing search warrants:

The Standard's Geoff Liesik learned about the raid in late August, but nobody was willing to tell him what the attorney general was investigating. So Liesik went looking for the search warrant, which is suppose to say why authorities are investigating someone and what they seized.

But nobody would even tell Liesik in which court the warrant was filed. Liesik even sent a records request to the attorney general asking for the location of the warrant, but the office denied his request, saying the warrant had been sealed by a judge. The attorney general did not say which one.

But applications for secrecy orders are public records, too. But, again, Liesik did not know in which court to look for the application.

Meanwhile, this was all creating a lot of work for Liesik, who is the newspaper's only full-time news reporter.

Liesik told me he was thinking to himself: "I'm going to fight this fight and go around in circles with [the attorney general], and they're going to file charges or send out a press release saying they are not going to file charges and all this work is going to be moot."

Then a breakthrough: Nancy Volmer, the public information officer for Utah District Courts, found the secrecy application filed in 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City. The courts eventually release the application, thereby disclosing some details of the attorney general's investigation.

— NC

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posted by www.sltrib.com @ 11:28 AM | 0 Comments
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Of Rats and Men

Under a new rule being considered by Utah's federal courts, records revealing that a criminal defendant has entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors would be hidden from the public.

The proposed rule comes as a response to growing concerns that criminals might target so-called "rats" for retribution. But critics like open government advocate Jeff Hunt have called the measure "an unjustified reaction" that "sweeps too broadly" and "goes far beyond what is warranted." (But tell us what you really think, Jeff!)

And in an editorial, The Provo Daily Herald warned that the case could "diminish public trust in the judicial system and potentially lay the groundwork for abuse." The newspaper noted that members of the public, unaware of the details of a plea arrangement, might conclude that prosecutors are going too light on criminals who, in fact, are secret rats. Not to be outdone by Hunt's persuasive prose, the Herald noted that "secret courts are one of the most feared weapons of any dictator." Whoa.

A few years ago, the city of Sandy tried to prevent the names of all of its law enforcement officers from being made public, arguing that police officers could be retaliated against by those they've arrested. That's a red herring, The Salt Lake Tribune successfully argued before the State Records Committee. After all, those who commit offenses don't need to do a public records search to find out which officer brought them to justice.

In this case, the same logic applies. Criminals don't need to file a FOIA to find out the names of the rats. They already know: It's the guy who was charged with the same offenses as you were but walked out of court a free man on the same day you went to prison. And if this rule is approved, criminals will have a new way of finding the rats: They'll be the guys whose plea hearing documents have been sealed.

-- mdl



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posted by www.sltrib.com @ 12:00 PM | 1 Comments
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
More access to justice court files
Good news for public access advocates today -- the Administrative Office of the Courts for Utah just announced the addition of 40 justice courts to the state court’s XChange service. XChange is a database of court case information that is available publicly for a monthly fee. Prior to the database expansion, accessing justice court case information required court users to contact each individual Justice Court.

For Xchange, there is a set up fee of $25, plus a monthly charge of $30 per month for up to 200 searches during a billing cycle.

Title companies, attorneys, private investigators and newspapers like The Salt Lake Tribune, which use the system often, can absorb these costs pretty easily as part of doing business. But it does make it difficult for average, ordinary citizens to access the courts in the same way that big businesses are able to. That's why many sunshine fans prefer fee-free services. (A bit of good news here, though -- you can still access a lot of public information for free at The Tribune's voyeuristic internet endeavor, UtahsRight.com. And it's likely that crew is already salivating over a new chunk of easily-accessible public information.) Update: The public can also access Xchange for free at any district courthouse. 

Justice court cases -- usually class B and C misdemeanors, infractions, and small claims cases -- don't typically make print in The Trib, but they are often the most pertinent to our (usually) mundane lives.

Let's say, for instance, that your house-sitter lets her girlfriends over to eat your food, drink your booze, and smoke pot in your basement (we're just speaking hypothetically, of course.) Chances are that when and if charges are filed against the young rascals, the case may find its way to the state's justice courts. And when you go to tell a judge about how you came home from vacation to find your house completely trashed and reeking of ganja (again, just speaking hypothetically, really) it'll likely be a justice court judge who hears your complaint.

-- mdl

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posted by www.sltrib.com @ 12:25 PM | 0 Comments
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