Open courts? Whooda thunk it?

WHAT'S THE CATCH?

That's what I keep asking every time I hear about this judicial commission that's working on ways to open up court records to public scrutiny. What are they really up to, I wonder to myself? What's the secret landmine they've inserted into the rules to make it easier to seal cases and hide stuff from the public?

The idea that a government entity might strive to make things more open, more accessible to the public simply flies in the face of everything that's happened in our state and in our country over the past few years. The Freedom of Information Act has pretty much been gutted by an administration that has instructed agencies on how to avoid complying with requests from citizens. The White House has invoked the excuse of executive privilege to hide evidence of its own malfeasance ... or worse. Potential threats to national security are invoked at every level to prevent outside scrutiny of the inner workings of government. It's not exactly a good era for open government and public access.

Nor is our local court system an open book. They've got plenty of little secrets down there at the Regional Justice Center. I think their public information staff does a magnificent job of working with local media, but they have far too many issues and far too many masters to serve to keep up with it all.

Think of how the system reacted to recent revelations that courthouse staffers routinely fix tickets for friends, or friends of friends. Nothing wrong with that, they said. Everybody does it. What's the big deal? There seemed to be little upheaval to the news that the courthouse crowd makes it easy for their buddies to skip jury duty, too. You'd think a courthouse would be the one place where jury duty would be considered a sacrosanct form of service, not something family members or casino executives or anyone else with juice could skip at a whim.

A judge's ability to seal a civil case is a powerful tool ... and a lucrative one. As Review-Journal reporter Frank Geary found out while researching his excellent series about sealed cases in the local courts, most of the cases that end up sealed involve people who are wealthy, well-connected, or both. Those who've had cases sealed in recent years include doctors who've botched surgeries, lawyers who've screwed over their clients, hospitals, drug manufacturers, casinos, big shot developers, porn stars, strip clubs, the bus company, the electric company, and public agencies including the school district and police departments.

Geary's series of reports highlighted what sure as hell looks like an ingrained system of favoritism down there, which should come as a surprise to, uh, no one. (The Review-Journal's series, by the way, is what inspired the creation of the commission now studying the situation.)

More than 10,000 civil cases have been sealed locally in the past two decades or so, locked up, chained down and then tossed into a dark pit, never to be seen again. No one can tell us why. In many of these cases, the public isn't even allowed to know which judge made the decision to seal. There are no hard and fast rules which dictate when a case can be sealed, or why, nor is there a process for reviewing such decisions. This kind of loosey goosey arrangement practically begs to be abused.

For instance, it's made it possible for our judges to perform little favors for their judicial colleagues, such as sealing a fellow judge's nasty divorce proceeding or putting the cone of silence over a civil matter pending against lawyers who hand out big campaign contributions.

The most vocal defender of the existing system is chief judge Kathy Hardcastle. She lobbied hard at the Legislature to prevent lawmakers from enacting their own sunshine statute, thus putting her on the same side as a drug companies, manufacturers, and the Chamber of Commerce, all of whom opposed any limits on a judge's discretion to seal cases. Does anyone have to wonder why? Hardcastle told the legislature and the R-J that judges need to have unbridled discretion to seal cases and that the system protects the privacy rights of litigants. Lobbyists have made the same argument, saying the public certainly has no right to know about private litigants.

Oh really? The public has no right to know about cases that are filed with the local court system, tried in local courtrooms built with public dollars, presided over by judges whose paycheck comes from public coffers, and involving issues which very often are of direct interest to the public? The public shouldn't know that a national tire company settled lawsuits filed by local residents after the tires on their cars disintegrated? Other drivers using the same tires shouldn't know? Crappy doctors who keep botching surgeries should be able to hide their settled lawsuits from other potential patients? Lawyers who rip off their clients should be able to keep such information to themselves? Seriously?

It is simply astounding to me that the commission now working on ways to open up the process and put the brakes on unnecessary, unjustified, and inappropriate sealings of cases appear to be doing exactly what they told us they would do. Knappster was among the handful of journalists who sat in on the most recent work session of the commission. We all came away mightily impressed. Hardcastle, who is also on the commission, argued for several changes to the proposed rules, changes that would allow judges to keep their ability to seal cases at will, and with little or no oversight. Amazingly, she was shot down every time by the other commission members who seem devoted to the idea of shining more -- not less -- light on the justice system.

The commission, which includes among its members Supreme Court Justices James Hardesty and William Maupin, will hammer out a final plan of action in the fall, then submit it to the full court for approval and implementation. From that point on, anyone who wants to seal a case will have to alert the public beforehand, explain the reasons in full, and keep the door open to unsealing the same material should anyone from the public ask them to do so. That's a whole lot of sunshine.

This is noble stuff, folks. They deserve our thanks and our support.

George Knapp is a veteran investigative reporter for KLAS-TV Channel 8. You can reach him at gknapp@klastv.com.