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From: Walt Borges -- director of Texas Citizen Action's Court Watch
Date: 2/26/98
Time: 11:18:01 PM
Remote Name: 38.217.62.132
The JCIT and Judicial Council and the TSC are uncertain arbiters of the fate of free access. The Senate Interim Cmte. on Public Information is more likely to have the final word if the public interest is not put before the interests of the judges and clerks. Copies of the forum statements should be made available to the interim committee to show that its not just a few of us FOI activists shouting in the wilderness. On another note, let me add that courtstuff's 5th Court segment is a great web site that should serve as the model for all state courts. By contrast, look at the TSC, which dragged its feet in using on-line and bulletin board technology to deliver basic opinion info. If the court refuses to provide free access because of "cost recovery," someone should raise the point that ther court was hardly cost-conscious in refusing to use the existing technologies across the hall at the Court of Criminal Appeals. Long after the CCA was making opinions fully available on-line and through the Window on State Government, the TSC was struggling to set up its own website. Long after the CCA was delivering opinions in zip files, the TSC was limiting BB access to 5 minutes, forcing users to make numerous calls to the line to secure a single day's worth of opinions. And TSC still hasn't figured out how to download the footnotes in the opinions. Finally, I thought I would share one other situation. This morning, I asked the TSC clerk for docket information, which is clearly a public information. I wanted the court's entire docket, which includes maybe 1,000 matters. The dockets are not available for inspection on a computer, and their is no written record except that produced by the computer. The high court charges $5 per page, and it requires two pages per docket entry. So I can review the TSC docket fully only if I have $10,000 to blow. But I can do the same thing with the 5th Court on line for free. Go figure. If you want to see the material wehave filed on the issues of access, costs and sealing of court records, please visit us at www.texasca.org and check out the Court Watch menu.