By Joel Thurtell
[donation]
I don’t care where they put them.
It could be in Cobo Hall or the old Packard plant.
But Wayne County has the busiest circuit court in Michigan, with 66 judges in criminal, family and civil divisions.
Its court records need to be open and accessible to anyone with a need to see them. A hallmark of democracy is openness, transparency, no hidden records, and there’s no more important record that that of a legal pleading in court.
Right now, those Wayne County Circuit Court records are hidden in a place known to court clerks but off limits to the public.
Supposedly, a lightning strike on the Coleman A. Young Building June 27 and a resulting transformer fire prompted Wayne County Clerk Cathy Gerritt or the circuit judges to move the records from the Young building to some undisclosed site. Why arrangements weren’t made immediately to provide public access, I don’t know. Citizens who ask questions get hung up on after being called “stupid ass.”
I’m trying to imagine what life must be like for anyone whose work relies on access to court records. There was a time in my life when part of my responsibility as a Detroit Free Press
reporter was making a trip from the 11th floor Young building office of the Free Press to the second-floor clerk’s counter where lawyers file lawsuits, briefs, motions — all the documents needed to support everything from a name change to a divorce or lawsuit for myriad causes. My job at 4 p.m. each week day was to whip through the huge stack of just-filed paperwork looking for interesting items to report. If I didn’t happen to catch the file when it was first brought to the clerk, I’d go down to the basement records room and have it called up. Now, that file room is locked. If you don’t happen to spot the lawsuit the day it’s filed, you’re out of luck. It’s sent out to storage in some secret place where only court officers can find it.
This cannot stand. Locking the records is a betrayal of the public trust and a breach of the very promise the county makes right now — yes, right now — on its website. That promise says court records will be open to the public.
Here it is: “The vision of the Court is to maintain and improve quality services to the public, utilizing human resources and technology in a manner that enhances and promotes access, fairness and accountability.”
Some “vision”. What happened to enhancing and promoting access? How does it promote “fairness and accountability” to lock the records up?
Hiding the records violates a pledge by the Michigan Supreme Court to make sure the public has access.
Here’s what Section 8 of the court rules says about access to court files:
A. Right of Public Inspection
“Generally, unless access to a file is restricted by statute, court rule, or an order according to
MCR 8.119(F), any person may inspect pleadings and other papers in a court clerk’s office
and may obtain copies as provided by MCR 8.119(E)(2) and (3). A court, by
administrative order, may make reasonable regulations necessary to protect its public
records and prevent excessive and unreasonable interference with the discharge of its
functions.”
It has been suggested that the records were damaged by water following the transformer fire and the county is having them cleaned. If that is the case, then the situation is worse than I thought. It means county officials took no steps to protect vital court records from disaster despite warnings from Michigan’s Department of History, Art and Libraries to take precautions. The department issued a “Guide to Disaster Preparedness and Response” which Wayne County officials might want to peruse, albeit a bit too late. It says, “While protecting life and property are the top priority in a disaster, it is important to protect records as well. As
(the) 2005 hurricane season continues to demonstrate, when you lose government records,
buying and selling land, solving criminal cases, receiving health care and financial
assistance, and fulfilling the basic administrative, fiscal and legal functions of
government becomes very difficult.”
Maybe the Wayne County Circuit Court thinks hiding its records is a way to “make reasonable regulations necessary to protect its public records and prevent excessive and unreasonable interference with the discharge of its functions.”
I don’t.
There sure hasn’t been any public complaint by officials of “excessive and unreasonable interference,” except maybe by a stroke of lightning. That can’t be a justification for hiding the files.
The promise that “any person may inspect pleadings and other papers in a court clerk’s office
and may obtain copies” has been broken since June 27. I’m told maybe the records will be back in the Coleman building as early as August, but don’t count on it.
I don’t care where they put the files.
Just give the public access to them.
NOW!
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
