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RI's Judiciary promised online public access to court records. Where are they?
In other states, it's as easy as one click to access court records online and see, for example, whether someone running for public office has ever faced criminal charges.
But that's not the case in Rhode Island, and it won't be anytime soon, despite promises that a new online e-access system would be available to the public by summer 2025.
And there is no new timeline for when the new system will be in place, while the state's Judiciary has been unwilling to answer multiple questions about what has happened on the way to this point.
How does it work now?
The Rhode Island court system has a "public portal" now, where anyone can go online to view the docket of a case – essentially the status of criminal charges or civil cases.
But the public cannot see the filings themselves. Only attorneys currently have remote online access to actual filings in state court cases.
To see actual court documents, one has to physically go to a courthouse, with money in hand, to pay for copies.
By comparison, the federal courts have had their own remote public access portal, PACER, since 2001. And many other states, such as Florida, have similar systems.
How did we get here?
On March 12, 2025, the Judiciary issued a press release announcing the publication of proposed new rules to govern "public access to electronic case information" and soliciting public comment on the proposed rules.
The changes were prompted by the state's vendor, Tyler Technologies, sunsetting the existing Public Portal and replacing it with a new, more "robust" product, re:Search.
The new system would allow real-time access to case, calendar and party information for the public, as well as attorneys, law enforcement agencies and other interested parties.
"Because re:Search is a more robust system than the [existing] Public Portal, the Judiciary has the ability to offer remote access to more individuals and groups with differing levels of security and additional functionality within the system," the press release said.
The project was meant to start in the spring of 2025 and be implemented by that summer.
Why has the new system been delayed?
Lexi Kriss, spokesperson for the state Judiciary, said the delay was caused by issues with implementing the new technology, which then caused delays to the policy side of the rollout.
"The successful launch of any new technology platform requires significant testing and consideration of multiple factors as well as policy development and rulemaking," Kriss said. "Implementation of re:Search has taken longer than anticipated due to several technical delays that were outside of the Judiciary’s control."
"This delay impacted the administration’s ability to assess the system’s functionalities and advise the Supreme Court with respect to policy and rule changes," she continued.
She said that the project is being worked on, but there is no timeline for full implementation. The Judiciary paid $35,000 to Tyler Technologies in January 2025 for the development of the re:Search platform.
As for what is happening now, she said, "the Court is considering re:Search-specific rules during an ongoing trial period."
Judiciary won't release public comments about public access portal
The Judiciary is also unwilling to release the written comments weighing in on the rules for the new re:Search system submitted ahead of the April 11, 2025, deadline.
Why not? "As the court did not advise that submissions would be made public when announcing the open comment period, the comments will not be released," Kriss told The Journal.
That is not sitting well with open-access advocates.
"It’s both ironic and frustrating that the Judiciary solicited public comments about a portal that theoretically should make more information public, but refuses to make public the feedback it received," said John Marion, executive director of open government advocates Common Cause Rhode Island, when apprised of the courts' stance.
"It’s even more ironic that the Judiciary, the branch of government charged with interpreting the meaning of words, falls back on the excuse that the solicitation for public comment did not specify that any testimony submitted would be made public," he said.
The executive director for Rhode Island's ACLU agreed.
"Since the Judiciary sought public comments in a public rule-making process, we do not believe there was any meaningful expectation of privacy among those taking up the offer to submit testimony," echoed Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island.
He also noted that the courts have the opportunity to redact any "personally identifiable information" without "keeping the comments themselves secret."
As for the delay in getting the new electronic filing system running, "it will have been worth the wait if it results in a system that opens up records to the public as our testimony urged and not as set out in the court's proposed rules," Brown said.
"If it ends up limiting access in ways that we raised concerns about in our testimony, the public will have good reason to be upset about the time and money spent on this overhaul."
by Katherine Gregg
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