National News
More Virginia Court Records Go Online
February 10, 2014 posted by Steve Brownstein
After years of resistance, Chesterfield County’s Circuit Court clerk plans to put all criminal court information on the state’s searchable website for public view, leaving Henrico County as the last court in Virginia to block online access to public records.
The Virginia Supreme Court is working on a request from Chesterfield Circuit Court Clerk Judy Worthington to allow online public viewing of abstracts of Chesterfield criminal court records through the state’s computerized case management system. The high court’s judicial-services unit hopes to have the connection ready within two months.
But it must first segregate Chesterfield’s criminal and civil data through a programming change, to meet Worthington’s condition that only criminal records be made available. Once Chesterfield goes online, the public will have Internet access to criminal data in all of the state’s 125 general district courts and 119 of its 120 circuit courts, either using the state’s system or one of their own. Three jurisdictions — Virginia Beach, Fairfax County and Alexandria — operate their own systems independent of the Virginia Supreme Court. King and Queen County Circuit Court, one of just three holdouts two years ago, decided to make its information available shortly after a Richmond Times-Dispatch article about remote access to court records was published in March 2012.
“Since you brought it to the public’s attention, I felt like there was going to be a lot of criticism, so I thought I might as well go ahead and do it,” Clerk Deborah Longest said. “I had no idea I was one of only three. I thought maybe half the state wasn’t doing it.” With Chesterfield going online, that will leave Henrico Circuit Court — one of the state’s largest — as the last holdout to online access. When asked, Henrico Circuit Court Clerk Yvonne Smith was noncommittal on whether she would reconsider online access. Smith said the Supreme Court has talked about making various system upgrades for a number of years, and those upgrades have been slow to occur or still haven’t happened.
Consequently, she remains skeptical that this new programming change for Chesterfield will occur anytime soon, so “there is plenty of time for me to give this consideration.” Through a spokeswoman, Henrico Chief Circuit Court Judge L.A. Harris declined to comment on the court’s lack of online accessibility. Two years ago, then-Chief Judge Catherine Hammond said the court was in favor of “full and open access to the courts” and supported electronic and digital improvements “to the extent that we can move forward.” In 2012, Henrico’s Smith — like Chesterfield’s Worthington — indicated she might be willing to make criminal information available if civil records could be excluded. Smith said her constituents want their privacy protected, especially when it comes to matters of divorce and child custody and support issues.
Smith said she also had concerns about online public access to traffic violations, which are included in the criminal data, along with criminal cases that ended with dismissals or not-guilty verdicts. Worthington had long resisted making public records available online because of what she described as constituents’ fear of having their personal business available for all to see. But her concern was primarily related to civil court data, which includes domestic matters such as divorce. “I’ve never really had any angst about posting criminal records online,” Worthington said in a recent email. “I had made several inquiries over the years regarding the Supreme Court of Virginia’s ability to segregate civil and criminal data so our criminal cases could be posted; however, the Supreme Court did not have the capability to post only criminal data — it was all or nothing.”
Worthington added that “in light of recent enhancements” to the Supreme Court system, she felt it was time to inquire again about the court’s technological capabilities. Paul DeLosh, the director of judicial services for the Virginia Supreme Court, said the court’s information technology unit has had the ability to segregate the data since the online case information system was developed in 2000-01, and that Worthington’s request two months ago was the first his office has received for such a programming change. “We have to do a specific programming logic change to display just criminal cases, because … what is available online is both criminal and civil,” DeLosh said of Worthington’s request.
The work will take several weeks of programming and testing and should be ready in about two months, he said. Although Worthington will allow online access to criminal data, she remains firmly opposed to releasing civil court information, which she says comes down to “personal disputes between private individuals.”
“Personal privacy is a bigger issue today than it ever was, as evidenced by the public’s reaction to the news that personal information has been captured for use by the government,” Worthington said. “I have seen firsthand the shock on litigants’ faces when they discover that anyone can come into a circuit court clerk’s office and request to see a divorce file.”
Worthington noted that she is required by law to make that file available — unless sealed by the court — to anyone who walks into her office and asks for it.
But she is not required to post civil and domestic case information online. “If the legislature felt that I should do so, there would be a legislative mandate to that effect,” she said.
