COVID-19 restrictions are easing at Riverside County courthouses, allowing the public access to courtrooms and clerk counters to conduct legal business and pay tickets much like the pre-pandemic world of distant memory.
But there are significant changes in some procedures that both expand and restrict the public’s access to information.
Courtroom audio live-streaming, which was introduced last year when the public was not permitted to gather for hearings due to health guidelines, will become permanent, the courts have announced.
But free access to criminal case records has been reduced.
The recent cutback on records access is due to both pandemic closures of legal self-help centers at each courthouse and an ongoing dispute about what information is permitted to be public according to state law.
A 2016 lawsuit filed by All of Us or None Riverside, a criminal justice advocacy group, has resulted in a court order from the 4th District Court of Appeal for the county to stop using personal information, like a defendant’s date of birth, as required information to look up a case file for free.
Until recently, any member of the public who knew a defendant’s name and date of birth, or name and driver’s license number, could search for that person’s criminal records on a Riverside Superior Court website at no cost.
Criminal case dockets provide the public — and defendants themselves — with scheduling information for hearings and other general information about cases filed in the county court system.
The appeals court justices issued the decision based on the California Rules of Court and the state’s Health and Safety Code.
Riverside Superior Court administrators interpreted the ruling as an order to end, rather than modify, free access to criminal case dockets.
Now,a member of the publicmust pay a fee of $1 each time they access case information remotely through the court’s website. Searches can be done by name and no birth date is required.
In theory, members of the public can conduct such searches for free at the court’s self-help centers, but those remain closed due to pandemic restrictions.
Riverside County’s charges for accessmake it an outlier in the region and the state.
The Desert Sun was able to remotely access criminal case information at no cost on the websites for the superior courts in San Diego, San Bernardino, Imperial, Orange and Los Angeles counties. In total, 39 of the state’s 58 county superior courts provided free access to these records on their websites.
Only Riverside, Sacramento and Inyo counties charge for remote access. Another 16 counties required records requests to be made by phone, mail or in person at a courthouse.
The changes mean even defendants facing criminal charges in Riverside County have to pay every time they want to look up their own case information on the court’s website, as would any member of the general public who wishesto obtain information from the criminal justice system.
Paid access to criminal court filings, like a criminal complaint, on the court’s website, which may include personal information about defendants, was also recently taken away and can only be accessed at the courthouses.
Riverside All of Us or None filed the suit against the county court’s Executive Officer W. Samuel Hamrick Jr. in 2016, claiming the court was violating state law by how it keeps and makes its records available.
The case hinges on two issues: the retention of records of cannabis-related offenses, which are regulated by the California Health and Safety Code section 11361.5; and public access to criminal case records, regulated by the state’s Rules of Court Rule 2.507(c).
Rule 2.507(c) specifies information to be included in and excluded from the court calendars, indexes, and registers of actions to which public access is available by electronic means. “To the extent it is feasible to do so, the court must maintain court calendars, indexes, and registers of actions available to the public by electronic means in accordance with this rule,” the rule states.
However, the rule also specifies that certain information must be excluded from court calendars, indexes, and registers of actions, including:
Vonya Quarles, executive director of Starting Over, Inc. — a Riverside County group that provides social service and employment resources — and who works with All of Us or None, endorsed the changes.
She said that Riverside County Superior Court authorities, by previously allowing such information to be freely available, were negatively affecting people who were trying to move beyond their criminal histories and rebuild their lives.
Quarles said the 2016 suit was filed to ensure the state’s Rules of Court and Health and Safety Code were being followed.
The issue of the search costs posing a barrier to public access, Quarles added, is up to the court to figure out.
“So, if the courts decide to close all access down to these records, that is their response,” Quarles said. “Other courts meet the mandate of these laws, and I am confident Riverside will too, without restricting all access, but if they don’t, that is their decision.”
The case, originally filed in Riverside County, was transferred to San Diego County Superior Court, where attorneys for both sides debated the issues through more than three years of filings and court hearings.
All of Us or None took issue with how the court retained records of offenses related to cannabis that All of Us or None saidshould have been expunged. The Riverside Superior Court argued that its practice of redacting such records met the requirements of the law.
All of Us or None argued that the court’s use of dates of birth and driver’s license information to access records and the ability for the public to purchase these documents and receive copies of them by email violated the California Rules of Court. The court’s attorneys defended the protocol as necessary for public access to court records.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Earl Maas ultimately ruled that the Riverside court, with minor modifications to its protocols, was not in violation of the law.
But All of Us or None appealed the ruling and found favorable jurists at California’s 4th District Court of Appeal.
Associate Justices Cynthia Aaron, Patricia Benke and Patricia Guerrero ruled that the court’s practice of allowing the public to search for records by using a defendant’s date of birth or driver’s license number violated state law, according to an order published on May 26. The justices also ruled that the court was violating state law by not destroying certain records of marijuana-related offenses.
The case was sent back to the lower court for some details to be worked out and it is unclear if Riverside County Superior Court will be appealing the decision.
This ruling related to the birth dates and driver’s license numbers hinged on an unusual technicality, requiring the justices to review the record of the California Judicial Council’s Court Executives Advisory Committee from 2003 to determine the intention of the rule.
The court argued that it was not disclosing a defendant’s date of birth on its website — which would have been a clear violation of the Rules of Court — but rather allowing the public to use a known date of birth to narrow a search when more than one defendant may have the same name. In other words, a defendant could use their own date of birth in addition to their case number and access this information for free. The date of birth was being used to access the court’s index but it wasn’t the product of the search, the county argued.
While the justices conceded that the law was ambiguous about this, they weren’t persuaded by the court’s argument: “The history of the relevant rules of court strongly supports the conclusion that permitting such searches constitutes a violation [of the Rules of Court].”
“While defendants’ alleged practice undoubtedly facilitates public access to information, the rules’ history unequivocally establishes that the drafters of the rules of court governing electronic access to trial court records did not intend simply to maximize the public’s access to information,” the justices’ order reads. “Rather, the drafters sought to balance the public’s access to court records with the privacy concerns of those involved in criminal proceedings.”
In response to the ruling, the Riverside County court put a paywall in front of the public’s option to search an index of a case remotely on the court’s website.
If people, including defendants, want to access that information for free, they now need to go to the courthouse and use its public computer terminals. But those remain closed as of Friday due to pandemic restrictions.
Otherwise, they’ll have to pay, a change that Quarles said the suit was not intended to cause. Rather, she said, the case was about helping people who faced criminal charges and convictions in their reintegration to society without such information limiting their opportunities.
Riverside County Superior Court Public Information Officer Marita Ford released a flurry of reopening announcements related to the court in recent weeks as the state’s pandemic restrictions were eased.
Vaccinated people can again walk maskless in the courthouses. Defendants will again appear in person, rather than by video, for arraignments in the coming week.
But the new cost of records is a departure from, rather than a return to, pre-pandemic norms.
Ford said in response to The Desert Sun’s reporting that the computers for the public to view records at the courthouses should be accessible.
The Desert Sun paid a visit to the Palm Springs courthouse Friday and confirmed that the self-help legal center remained closed.
Ford responded that the court is “working out the kinks this week after the reopening.”
The Desert Sun was not able to verify whether the terminals at the county’s other courts in Indio, Banning, and Murrieta were open before each court closed to the public at 2 p.m. Friday.
When asked about the new cost to public access of criminal records, Ford responded: “With this recent change after the [District Court of Appeal], the court is exploring options in order to balance access to justice, compliance with the law, and cost recovery.”
Quarles said that the suit did not introduce any barriers for the public to access anything that is legal. The limitations imposed, she said, reflect the court’s policies.
“Hopefully the courts will do what they are required to do and that is to make sure their public records remain public, private records are maintained as such, and all records that are to be purged as ordered by law, are in fact purged,” Quarles said. “Riverside All of Us or None did not bring this suit to hurt our county; we brought this suit to help people.”
Desert Sun reporter Christopher Damien covers public safety and the criminal justice system. He can be reached at christopher.damien@desertsun.com or follow him at @chris_a_damien.
Desert Sun reporter Maria Sestito contributed to this report.
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