Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Monday, October 08, 2007
Keep court records open to the public
A bill in the state Assembly would violate the spirit and the letter of Wisconsin’s open records law.
Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, has introduced Assembly Bill 418. It would severely limit access to court records. It would eliminate the opportunity for ordinary citizens to access court records online, and would require that anyone requesting public court records in person would have to give his or her name to the records custodian, who would then decide whether the request is “reasonable.”
At a public hearing on the bill Thursday, Schneider said that the consolidated court automated programs (CCAP) Web site has destroyed people’s careers and reputations.
“The computer never forgets, and it never forgives,” Schneider said. “Whether they’re guilty or innocent is beside the point.”
But Schneider misses the point about open records — you can’t keep them secret. That’s the whole point. The United States does not have secret trials. Information about courts is open to the public.
The CCAP site just makes it easy for the public to access public records. But those records were already open.
To his credit, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen defended the Web site and the open records law.
In a letter to members of the Assembly committee on Corrections and Courts, Van Hollen quoted from state law: “It is ‘the public policy of this state that all persons are entitled to the greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of these officers and employees who represent them.’ This policy is a recognition that ‘representative government is dependent on an informed electorate.’ Records of court proceedings are not an exception to this policy. Indeed, the public nature of criminal proceedings has long been recognized as an essential component of liberty.”
Van Hollen is right. Let’s keep court records — and all other public records — open.
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