By Joel Thurtell
Detroit's Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, where Wayne County Circuit Court is operating with a locked file room and no case records. Joel Thurtell photo.
Who ever heard of a court that works without files?
Sounds like something Franz Kafka would make up.
You know, that insane novel of his, “The Trial,” where a guy spends his life trying to make contact with the outer layers of a court system that is completely hidden from the view of all but the people who run it.
That would be something a totalitarian regime would devise — trials and hearings without records.
Stealth justice is no justice.
Well, readers of joelontheroad.com know it’s happening right now in Detroit.
The busiest court in Michigan — Wayne County Circuit Court — has taken its records to an undisclosed place following a June 27 lightning strike and fire in the Coleman A. Young Building where they were housed.
If you need to see a file, too bad.
Sixty-six judges.
Holding court, taking testimony and then putting the records in a black hole.
Weird thing is that nobody else seems upset about it. Those articles in Detroit newspapers about hizzoner’s court troubles? Well, true, the main criminal case is on the docket at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice where criminal cases are heard, so its file is safe and presumably open. The Coleman A. Young Building is the building that was struck by lightning. It houses the civil case files, and they’re the ones that are in hiding.
Still, the newspapers’ Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick are being heard in civil court. And you don’t hear reporters squawking about not getting access. But if I asked to see the records of the Kwamegate civil cases, I’d be out of luck.
Think about that: You want to see the records of a Freedom of Information case? Sorry, files are hidden away. The very Freedom of Information law becomes a sham.
Unless you’re the judge in a Kafka novel, this is nuts.
Am I the only one who cares? I called Len Niehoff, an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law
Locked: Wayne County Circuit Court file room in Detroit's Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Joel Thurtell photo.
School and a practicing attorney with the Butzel Long law firm.
“Michigan law is very clear on this,” Niehoff told me. “Can the court operate without access to files? The starting point is that files must be accessible to the public, unless some extraordinary circumstance dictates otherwise.”
Access to court files is mandated, Niehoff told me, by common law, statutes and the Michigan Constitution.
“We operate with a presumptively open judicial system,” Niehoff said. “Sometimes files are sealed, but there is a strong presumption under constitutional law that courts are open.”
“Everybody understands if lightning strikes your building and you have a flood or computer problem that there may be a temporary lapse in your ability to provide access, but the proper approach is to treat it as a critical situation. You would hope that the court would treat it as a situation of great urgency and not just an issue do be dealt with when you can get to it.”
“This impacts the openness of the judicial system — it is critical that this be fixed and access be restored as soon as possible.”
Questiion is, has anything been done to restore public access to Wayne County Circuit Court files?
Stay tuned — I plan to trek down to Detroit to see if my reports have influenced official behavior.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
