Justice Is About To Get Some Much Needed Sunshine.
Proposal would open judicial branch's records
Council to help draft proposal this year
By Andrew Wolfson
Want to know how much the Kentucky Bar Association paid an outside lawyer last year to investigate its president?
Don't bother asking bar officials. They're not telling.
Curious about what Jefferson County circuit judges are discussing at their monthly meetings?
Don't bother asking the judges for their minutes. They don't have to give them to you.
The reason is that for more than 30 years, the state Supreme Court has maintained that the Kentucky Open Records Act doesn't apply to judicial branch agencies, such as the state bar association.
But that's about to change.
Following the lead of high courts in many other states, John Minton Jr., chief justice of Kentucky, is expected to propose new open-records rules for the judiciary later this year.
Katie Quitter, Minton's chief of staff, said the state's Judicial Council, a group of judges, lawyers and state legislators, will help draft the policy.
The new rules wouldn't apply to court records, which are already open, or change the confidentiality rules in the disciplinary process for lawyers and judges.
But they may open administrative records of Supreme Court agencies, which include the KBA, the Board of Bar Examiners and the Judicial Conduct Commission.
It's a long overdue change, said John Nelson, executive editor of the Danville Advocate and a former president of the Kentucky Press Association.
"I think there is probably a lot that the media is missing because they don't have access to those records," he said. "In a lot of cases, we may not know to ask."
Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, said opening the records of judicial agencies is important to citizens, not just reporters.
"I've seen example after example of citizens, not reporters, who provide scrutiny of the judiciary," he said.
Jon Fleischaker, who represents the press association, The Courier-Journal and other news outlets, said he has argued "for a very long time that these records should be open to the public. The public needs to know how those agencies are spending their money and how they are functioning."
Though the General Assembly included "state or local court or judicial agencies" in the open-records statute it approved in 1976, the Supreme Court held in a 1978 case that another branch of government could not tell the judicial branch what to do with its own records.
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As a result, the attorney general's office, which hears appeals of open-records rulings, has denied 60 appeals of requests for judicial records since 1980.
Those requests range from a copy of the policy for using a metal detector at the Warren County judicial center to a list of civil cases in Jefferson County that ended in jury trials.
Some requests for even the most basic information have been rejected.
For example, last year, the Kentucky Board of Bar Examiners initially refused a request by The Courier-Journal for records showing the pass rates of applicants from the state's three public law schools.
By the time the board got permission from the Supreme Court to release those figures, the newspaper had already obtained them from the schools and published them in a story.
Other agencies simply don't respond at all.
More than three months after the newspaper asked the Kentucky Bar Association in December for records showing the amount it had paid Lexington attorney Robert Houlihan Jr. to investigate allegations against its president, Barbara Bonar -- and for a copy of his report -- the association still has not responded.
Since the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that court records "are inseparable from the judicial function itself, and are not subject to statutory regulation," the Administrative Office of the Court and some other agencies have released certain records voluntarily.
The open-records act requires that executive and legislative agencies respond to requests within three days.
Nelson said excluding judicial records from the sunshine law never made sense: "I have never heard of a justification, if there is one."
Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at (502) 582-7189.
Council to help draft proposal this year
By Andrew Wolfson
Want to know how much the Kentucky Bar Association paid an outside lawyer last year to investigate its president?
Don't bother asking bar officials. They're not telling.
Curious about what Jefferson County circuit judges are discussing at their monthly meetings?
Don't bother asking the judges for their minutes. They don't have to give them to you.
The reason is that for more than 30 years, the state Supreme Court has maintained that the Kentucky Open Records Act doesn't apply to judicial branch agencies, such as the state bar association.
But that's about to change.
Following the lead of high courts in many other states, John Minton Jr., chief justice of Kentucky, is expected to propose new open-records rules for the judiciary later this year.
Katie Quitter, Minton's chief of staff, said the state's Judicial Council, a group of judges, lawyers and state legislators, will help draft the policy.
The new rules wouldn't apply to court records, which are already open, or change the confidentiality rules in the disciplinary process for lawyers and judges.
But they may open administrative records of Supreme Court agencies, which include the KBA, the Board of Bar Examiners and the Judicial Conduct Commission.
It's a long overdue change, said John Nelson, executive editor of the Danville Advocate and a former president of the Kentucky Press Association.
"I think there is probably a lot that the media is missing because they don't have access to those records," he said. "In a lot of cases, we may not know to ask."
Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, said opening the records of judicial agencies is important to citizens, not just reporters.
"I've seen example after example of citizens, not reporters, who provide scrutiny of the judiciary," he said.
Jon Fleischaker, who represents the press association, The Courier-Journal and other news outlets, said he has argued "for a very long time that these records should be open to the public. The public needs to know how those agencies are spending their money and how they are functioning."
Though the General Assembly included "state or local court or judicial agencies" in the open-records statute it approved in 1976, the Supreme Court held in a 1978 case that another branch of government could not tell the judicial branch what to do with its own records.
Advertisement
As a result, the attorney general's office, which hears appeals of open-records rulings, has denied 60 appeals of requests for judicial records since 1980.
Those requests range from a copy of the policy for using a metal detector at the Warren County judicial center to a list of civil cases in Jefferson County that ended in jury trials.
Some requests for even the most basic information have been rejected.
For example, last year, the Kentucky Board of Bar Examiners initially refused a request by The Courier-Journal for records showing the pass rates of applicants from the state's three public law schools.
By the time the board got permission from the Supreme Court to release those figures, the newspaper had already obtained them from the schools and published them in a story.
Other agencies simply don't respond at all.
More than three months after the newspaper asked the Kentucky Bar Association in December for records showing the amount it had paid Lexington attorney Robert Houlihan Jr. to investigate allegations against its president, Barbara Bonar -- and for a copy of his report -- the association still has not responded.
Since the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that court records "are inseparable from the judicial function itself, and are not subject to statutory regulation," the Administrative Office of the Court and some other agencies have released certain records voluntarily.
The open-records act requires that executive and legislative agencies respond to requests within three days.
Nelson said excluding judicial records from the sunshine law never made sense: "I have never heard of a justification, if there is one."
Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at (502) 582-7189.
Labels: Justice, Keeping them honest
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 9:32 AM
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