CCJ/COSCA Guidelines Project
Focuses on Court Records
by
Martha Wade Steketee
During
the development of CCJ/COSCA’s Public Access to Court Records:
Guidelines for Policy Development for State Courts (see www.courtaccess.org), the project’s advisory committee recognized
that family and domestic relations records required special attention
and review. In a follow-up project to implement the CCJ/COSCA
Guidelines, researchers will use a range of information gathering
strategies, including focus groups and discussions with relevant
professional groups to identify state and local concerns in this area.
For example, project staff will talk with judicial officers at
federally funded demonstration sites where creative policies and
practices are used for cases that involve both child maltreatment and
domestic violence.
Some
key questions for family and domestic relations court records were
identified at a special session on family court records during the 2nd
annual Courtroom 21 Conference on Privacy and Public Access to Court
Records at the William & Mary Law School in November 2002. These
questions, which may provide a starting point for the project,
include:
-
Should
we protect interests of 3rd parties involved in family cases?
-
Should
court restrict access to some personal identifiers in family case
records?
-
Should
detailed financial information contained in family case records be
accessible to the public?
-
Should
sensitive reports (e.g. financial and mental health) in family
cases be available to the public?
-
How
can courts address the special concerns presented in domestic
violence case court documents?
-
How
are court rules enforced in this arena, especially when many
parties in family and domestic
relations court cases are unrepresented?
The
15-month project “Public Access to Court Records: Implementing the
CCJ/COSCA Guidelines” will allow The National Center for State
Courts (NCSC) and the Justice Management Institute (JMI) to continue
their work with CCJ and COSCA to refine and develop materials and
models to assist the state courts as they develop their own policies
and procedures for public access to court records.
The
project will also focus on developing internal court policies and
procedures by identifying the elements of a model policy that a court,
or statewide judiciary, could adopt to govern internal access to, and
use of, information in electronic court records by court employees, as
opposed to public access to the information. Finally, the project will
develop materials for courts to educate litigants, lawyers, and the
public on access policies that are developed.
The
project advisory committee includes court professional, privacy
advocates, media representatives, and others. Readers are invited to
contact project staff with ideas and examples from their jurisdictions
in any of the project areas. For further information, contact Martha
Wade Steketee at 703-841-5614, msteketee@ncsc.dni.us,
or Alan Carlson at 415-816-3341, acarlson@jmijustice.org.
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