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Can court cases be hidden?

By CHRIS TISCH
Published March 5, 2007

The Florida Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today about how to resolve issues surrounding the use of secret dockets.

Newspaper reporters in South Florida discovered last year that some court cases were being kept off the public docket, essentially masking their very existence.

While judges frequently seal parts of a file, such as psychological evaluations in a criminal case, the sealing of the entire docket is far more rare. The docket provides the names of the parties involved as well as the nature of the case. Its sealing could prevent the public from knowing the case ever existed.

Reporters found that some cases kept off the public docket in Broward County included prominent people, giving the impression that the powerful could get their cases on a secret docket to avoid potential public embarrassment.

In the Tampa Bay area, a review by the St. Petersburg Times found that while dozens of cases were improperly moved from the public docket, the errors appeared to be honest mistakes or misunderstandings.

Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Lewis has said he nearly swallowed his tongue when he learned of the secret dockets. He ordered each judicial circuit in the state to report to him if secret dockets were used.

A committee took up the issue and has offered proposals for how parties could request that a docket be sealed and how others could challenge the sealing.

Lewis and the other justices will hear today from lawyers representing prosecutors, public defenders, media organizations and others.

Prosecutors have filed paperwork indicating they don't believe the proposal goes far enough to protect the identities of confidential informants assisting law enforcement agencies in ongoing investigations.

Arthur I. Jacobs, general counsel for the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, wrote that the proposed changes "are literally a matter of life or death" that would be "akin to painting a 'bull's-eye' on the cooperating defendant's head."

In comments filed with the state high court, Robert Dewitt Trammell, general counsel for the Florida Public Defender Association, said the organization was troubled by a November Miami Herald report that said prosecutors sometimes alter dockets to protect the identities of informants.

"Altering or falsifying court records, however, is a crime," Trammell wrote.

Jacobs called Trammell's comments "wholly inappropriate, inaccurate and misleading."

The media organizations intend to argue that the proposals don't go far enough to ensure openness of court records.

[Last modified March 5, 2007, 01:14:36]