(CN) - The California court bureaucracy's campaign to
assess a $10-per-file fee for every record request has brought a tide of
criticism from key legislators, judges and newspapers, saying the proposed
legislation would "bring the shades down" and "have a negative impact on our
democracy."
"When we use the judicial system like that we're neutralizing the ability to enforce our laws, which will have a negative impact on our democracy," said state Senator Noreen Evans, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "A document fee reduces transparency in government, denies access to public records and it also impacts journalists who cover the courts."
The democrat from Santa Rosa is also a member of the courts' policy making Judicial Council. She has been a staunch defender of Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and supported many initiatives from the chief's staff in the administrative office, the same bureaucracy that is pushing the new search fee. Evans' opposition is a strong indicator of the way the wind is blowing on legislation to enact the fee.
Evans also slammed Governor Brown's Department of Finance which is backing the proposal, saying the Brown administration is strong-arming the courts into become a fee-for-service branch of government. "The Department of Finance is forcing the courts to try to raise fees," said Evans. "What the Department of Finance doesn't understand is the judicial branch is not just another agency of government that can raise fees."
A second key legislator, Senator Loni Hancock, who chairs the budget subcommittee vetting the fee legislation, is also critical of the charge.
"Piecemeal fee increases can add up to a real lack of access for reporters, for low income and middle income people as they seek our justice system," said Hancock in a recent interview. "So in the interest of transparency in a democracy as well as access to justice for all people, it's of great concern to me to increase those fees."
Under existing law in California, courts charge $15 for searches of court records that take over 10 minutes. The proposal put forward by the administrative office and backed by Brown would change the government code to charge $10 for every name, file or information that comes back on any search, regardless of the time spent.
The rationale behind the new fee has been varied and muddled.
The bureaucrats from the administrative office first said the fee was aimed at data miners but did not provide a definition of who they are. Then they said they needed money for the courts even though they cannot say what funds, if any, the fee would bring in. Then they said simply they did not have stop watches -- to measure the ten minutes required under current law to trigger a charge.
Most searches are quick and come back in much less time. But, as the judges and legislators pointed out, the new fee would also cause anyone to think twice before asking to look at court records.
For news organizations that routinely review a large number of court files in their work, the new fee would quickly add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. For example, newspaper reporter reviewing the new cases for news would be hit with a ten-dollar fee for every case reviewed, a sum that would add up to roughly $400 a day in San Jose's superior court and $700 a day in San Francisco.
Judge Steve White in Sacramento described the proposed legislation as a "ham-handed" piece of work by the administrators for the courts.
"It would put almost anyone who covers court news out of business," said White. "Whether that's the intention or not, that would be the result. Through that lens you can appreciate that it's not much different than asking a cover charge to watch the trials we preside over."
Among the state's newspapers and television stations, the fee idea has worked as a self-inflicted black eye for the courts' administrative office.
SF Gate, for example, published a story about the $10 per file search fee entitled "Fee Would Sock Public for Court Records."
An editorial in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat was titled "Price-gouging plan to fund state courts."
Underneath a photo of the chief justice, the newspaper contrasted the chief's call for "equal justice for all" in her state of the courts address with the actions of her staffs in proposing the fee. The newspaper described it as "an astonishingly bad idea to raise money for the courts - charging $10 for so much as a peek at any file in any courthouse."
The Press Democrat added, "Arbitrary and excessive fees would put some information services out of business. Just as important, they would be a deterrent to journalists and citizens wanting to do research or to simply follow a court case. Price gouging will only push the state further from her goal of justice for all."
The story has also been picked up by TV stations KPBS and ABC's Channel 10 in San Diego.
ABC noted the statement the concession by the head administrator for the courts that the fee was not sound policy.
"Steven Jahr, administrative director of the courts, agrees that it's not `sound policy' and says the courts want the Legislature to restore funding," said the ABC story. "But he says the fee will be necessary if Brown and lawmakers do not increase the court budget.
The most powerful newspaper in the state, the Los Angeles Times, has not weighed in on the fee issue.
Confusion over the story has also been inadvertently spread by the administrative office and the Judicial Council.
The Press Democrat's story said, "The search fee alone would generate $6 million for the Judicial Council," an estimate repeated by the Fresno Bee.
But the estimate is incorrect.
A separate proposal to raise copy fees from 50 cents a page to $1 a page is estimated to raise $ 6 million, according to the report of the Public Coordination Liaison Committee of the Judicial council. The search fee, however, does not have any estimated fiscal impact.
"The amount of revenue this proposal will bring in is impossible to estimate," said the Judicial Council's public coordination committee.
A spokesman for the governor's finance department, H.D. Palmer, defended the inability of his department to predict any financial impact from the new fee by saying individual courts have been inconsistent. He then pointed to the different costs for copies of documents placed online by the courts in Sacramento and Orange County.
"As an example, our legal staff advise that Sacramento Superior County provides documents free of charge, whereas counties like Orange will charge," said Palmer.
In fact, neither court charges for a search of its records. No court in California with online records charges for a search of those records.
Courts traditionally charge to make copies of documents. Sacramento provides online copies of the documents for no charge while Orange County charges between 7.50 and $40 for online copies of documents, depending on the number of pages. No judge or court clerk has so far suggested that Orange County or any other court should set a flat copy fee of $10 for document copies, which is what the call for consistency would suggest.
Senator Evans said she was disturbed by the lack of cogent analysis behind the search fee.
"If we're going to go to the extent to force citizens to pay for access to justice, we'd better darn well know how much revenue it's going to produce," she said. "The fact that the Department of Finance doesn't know how much revenue this is raising is disturbing."
Most commentators argue that the fee is more likely to drive people away from court records than raise funds for the courts.
"If it's the intention of this proposal to bring in revenues to keep courts open, that idea is larded with irony," said White. "It would make court operations more inaccessible."
"One has to question the purpose of this," he said. "If something this extravagantly expensive and onerous were passed it wouldn't bring in any revenues because it would shut down access to court documents. Some people suggest that that's the idea behind the proposal, to pull the shade down instead of raising revenues."
White is president of the Alliance of California Judges, a group that has campaigned for reform of the powerful and insular administrative office.
The latest proposal from the administrative office provided an opportunity for the Alliance to review the court administrative office's history of gaffes.
"Our branch leaders have hit a new low by proposing stealth trailer bill language to charge media outlets and the public for access to court records," wrote Judge Maryanne Gilliard. "It is another instance where access to justice is being denied by those who purport to be champions of the concept."
"Members of the Alliance have been ridiculed and stonewalled, the integrity of respected State Auditor Elaine Howle was questioned after her audit report on CCMS was released, print and television reporters and their supervisors have been called and chastised by AOC staff, and legislators were insulted by condescending comments about their support for the Trial Court Bill of Rights."
She noted that but for information brought out by the press, legislators and trial judges, the half-billion-dollar cost of the failed Court Case Management System would not have been revealed.
Nor would the generous pension for only the top 30 central office staff have been halted.
The judge went on to summarize the administrative office's history of controversy: "the sneaky attempt to gut our local courts of the right to elect their own presiding judges; outrageous maintenance costs, including over $8,000 to remove gum and over $200 to replace light bulbs; the phony AOC furlough program that appeared to take away a work day but in fact replaced it with an extra day of vacation; a purported 'hiring freeze,' when in fact the AOC continued to hire; free iPad giveaways to 14 top-ranking individuals, including those responsible for CCMS; and the attempt to block the audit of CCMS by branch leaders, including then Chief Justice Ronald George."
Gilliard added, "Not one of these revelations came without a fight."
"When we use the judicial system like that we're neutralizing the ability to enforce our laws, which will have a negative impact on our democracy," said state Senator Noreen Evans, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "A document fee reduces transparency in government, denies access to public records and it also impacts journalists who cover the courts."
The democrat from Santa Rosa is also a member of the courts' policy making Judicial Council. She has been a staunch defender of Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and supported many initiatives from the chief's staff in the administrative office, the same bureaucracy that is pushing the new search fee. Evans' opposition is a strong indicator of the way the wind is blowing on legislation to enact the fee.
Evans also slammed Governor Brown's Department of Finance which is backing the proposal, saying the Brown administration is strong-arming the courts into become a fee-for-service branch of government. "The Department of Finance is forcing the courts to try to raise fees," said Evans. "What the Department of Finance doesn't understand is the judicial branch is not just another agency of government that can raise fees."
A second key legislator, Senator Loni Hancock, who chairs the budget subcommittee vetting the fee legislation, is also critical of the charge.
"Piecemeal fee increases can add up to a real lack of access for reporters, for low income and middle income people as they seek our justice system," said Hancock in a recent interview. "So in the interest of transparency in a democracy as well as access to justice for all people, it's of great concern to me to increase those fees."
Under existing law in California, courts charge $15 for searches of court records that take over 10 minutes. The proposal put forward by the administrative office and backed by Brown would change the government code to charge $10 for every name, file or information that comes back on any search, regardless of the time spent.
The rationale behind the new fee has been varied and muddled.
The bureaucrats from the administrative office first said the fee was aimed at data miners but did not provide a definition of who they are. Then they said they needed money for the courts even though they cannot say what funds, if any, the fee would bring in. Then they said simply they did not have stop watches -- to measure the ten minutes required under current law to trigger a charge.
Most searches are quick and come back in much less time. But, as the judges and legislators pointed out, the new fee would also cause anyone to think twice before asking to look at court records.
For news organizations that routinely review a large number of court files in their work, the new fee would quickly add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. For example, newspaper reporter reviewing the new cases for news would be hit with a ten-dollar fee for every case reviewed, a sum that would add up to roughly $400 a day in San Jose's superior court and $700 a day in San Francisco.
Judge Steve White in Sacramento described the proposed legislation as a "ham-handed" piece of work by the administrators for the courts.
"It would put almost anyone who covers court news out of business," said White. "Whether that's the intention or not, that would be the result. Through that lens you can appreciate that it's not much different than asking a cover charge to watch the trials we preside over."
Among the state's newspapers and television stations, the fee idea has worked as a self-inflicted black eye for the courts' administrative office.
SF Gate, for example, published a story about the $10 per file search fee entitled "Fee Would Sock Public for Court Records."
An editorial in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat was titled "Price-gouging plan to fund state courts."
Underneath a photo of the chief justice, the newspaper contrasted the chief's call for "equal justice for all" in her state of the courts address with the actions of her staffs in proposing the fee. The newspaper described it as "an astonishingly bad idea to raise money for the courts - charging $10 for so much as a peek at any file in any courthouse."
The Press Democrat added, "Arbitrary and excessive fees would put some information services out of business. Just as important, they would be a deterrent to journalists and citizens wanting to do research or to simply follow a court case. Price gouging will only push the state further from her goal of justice for all."
The story has also been picked up by TV stations KPBS and ABC's Channel 10 in San Diego.
ABC noted the statement the concession by the head administrator for the courts that the fee was not sound policy.
"Steven Jahr, administrative director of the courts, agrees that it's not `sound policy' and says the courts want the Legislature to restore funding," said the ABC story. "But he says the fee will be necessary if Brown and lawmakers do not increase the court budget.
The most powerful newspaper in the state, the Los Angeles Times, has not weighed in on the fee issue.
Confusion over the story has also been inadvertently spread by the administrative office and the Judicial Council.
The Press Democrat's story said, "The search fee alone would generate $6 million for the Judicial Council," an estimate repeated by the Fresno Bee.
But the estimate is incorrect.
A separate proposal to raise copy fees from 50 cents a page to $1 a page is estimated to raise $ 6 million, according to the report of the Public Coordination Liaison Committee of the Judicial council. The search fee, however, does not have any estimated fiscal impact.
"The amount of revenue this proposal will bring in is impossible to estimate," said the Judicial Council's public coordination committee.
A spokesman for the governor's finance department, H.D. Palmer, defended the inability of his department to predict any financial impact from the new fee by saying individual courts have been inconsistent. He then pointed to the different costs for copies of documents placed online by the courts in Sacramento and Orange County.
"As an example, our legal staff advise that Sacramento Superior County provides documents free of charge, whereas counties like Orange will charge," said Palmer.
In fact, neither court charges for a search of its records. No court in California with online records charges for a search of those records.
Courts traditionally charge to make copies of documents. Sacramento provides online copies of the documents for no charge while Orange County charges between 7.50 and $40 for online copies of documents, depending on the number of pages. No judge or court clerk has so far suggested that Orange County or any other court should set a flat copy fee of $10 for document copies, which is what the call for consistency would suggest.
Senator Evans said she was disturbed by the lack of cogent analysis behind the search fee.
"If we're going to go to the extent to force citizens to pay for access to justice, we'd better darn well know how much revenue it's going to produce," she said. "The fact that the Department of Finance doesn't know how much revenue this is raising is disturbing."
Most commentators argue that the fee is more likely to drive people away from court records than raise funds for the courts.
"If it's the intention of this proposal to bring in revenues to keep courts open, that idea is larded with irony," said White. "It would make court operations more inaccessible."
"One has to question the purpose of this," he said. "If something this extravagantly expensive and onerous were passed it wouldn't bring in any revenues because it would shut down access to court documents. Some people suggest that that's the idea behind the proposal, to pull the shade down instead of raising revenues."
White is president of the Alliance of California Judges, a group that has campaigned for reform of the powerful and insular administrative office.
The latest proposal from the administrative office provided an opportunity for the Alliance to review the court administrative office's history of gaffes.
"Our branch leaders have hit a new low by proposing stealth trailer bill language to charge media outlets and the public for access to court records," wrote Judge Maryanne Gilliard. "It is another instance where access to justice is being denied by those who purport to be champions of the concept."
"Members of the Alliance have been ridiculed and stonewalled, the integrity of respected State Auditor Elaine Howle was questioned after her audit report on CCMS was released, print and television reporters and their supervisors have been called and chastised by AOC staff, and legislators were insulted by condescending comments about their support for the Trial Court Bill of Rights."
She noted that but for information brought out by the press, legislators and trial judges, the half-billion-dollar cost of the failed Court Case Management System would not have been revealed.
Nor would the generous pension for only the top 30 central office staff have been halted.
The judge went on to summarize the administrative office's history of controversy: "the sneaky attempt to gut our local courts of the right to elect their own presiding judges; outrageous maintenance costs, including over $8,000 to remove gum and over $200 to replace light bulbs; the phony AOC furlough program that appeared to take away a work day but in fact replaced it with an extra day of vacation; a purported 'hiring freeze,' when in fact the AOC continued to hire; free iPad giveaways to 14 top-ranking individuals, including those responsible for CCMS; and the attempt to block the audit of CCMS by branch leaders, including then Chief Justice Ronald George."
Gilliard added, "Not one of these revelations came without a fight."
