Courthouse News challenges Georgia clerks over access

The news service attacks a policy of withholding public access to new court pleadings contrary to longstanding tradition.(CN) — Courthouse News filed a First Amendment action Tuesday against a group of Georgia court clerks who are withholding public access to new court pleadings at the time they come into the courthouse.The action challenges a blackout of the new court pleadings that lasts hours or days. The result is stale news.“Since time beyond memory, state and federal courts nationwide have provided timely access to newly filed, non-confidential, civil complaints, which occurred upon receipt of the new filing by the clerk,” said the complaint.Filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta on Tuesday, the news service’s complaint itself became public immediately through the public access system used by federal courts. That immediacy stands in contrast to the defendants in the case, Georgia clerks who hold back the new pleadings.The lawyers representing Courthouse News on the case are Peter Canfield with his own firm in Atlanta and Carol Jean LoCicero, Mark Caramanica and Daniela Abratt-Cohen with LoCicero & Thomas in Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale.The court clerks named as defendants hold office in nine counties, including Muscogee, Forsyth and Cobb.The complaint seeks to enforce in electronic times the same prompt access afforded the press and public in paper days. Journalists would look through a box on the intake counter in the court clerk’s office to see if there was a story in the new complaints from that day, whether it involved water pollution, bureaucratic ineptitude, or corporate malfeasance.The old way was expressed from the bench in the U.S. Eighth Circuit by Judge Bobby Shepherd who said during an argument in his court: “There was a time when — and some in this room may remember it — when you took a pleading to the courthouse and the clerk stamped it physically and it went into different bins and it was available immediately.”After that Eighth Circuit argument, the three-judge panel reversed a lower court judge’s decision to dismiss a First Amendment action by Courthouse News against courts in Missouri. The state then settled the action by setting up its own e-filing system that went along the lines of the federal courts in providing public access automatically and immediately.Other states around the country — in Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, Massachusetts, Utah, as well as the four biggest states, Florida, California, New York and Texas — all give the press traditional access to new court pleadings right away.But some state court clerks are holding out in Idaho, Kentucky, New Hampshire and Georgia. They hold back the new cases, now filed electronically, while they sit in an electronic queue and wait for manual docket entries by the clerk’s staff. That group includes clerks in the Georgia counties of Cherokee, Douglas, Hall, Henry, Muscogee and Richmond who are defendants in the case. The courts in the metro area of Atlanta give access to the new matters right away.The main justification offered by clerks who black out the new civil pleadings is privacy. They argue that the privacy of those who file new cases trumps the public right to see them right away. Most states, however, have rules saying that what’s in a court pleading is the responsibility of the person filing the paper, not the clerk who takes it in.Tuesday’s complaint by Courthouse News asks for an injunction against the withholding practice and a declaratory order saying it violates the First Amendment right of access.“Such access is fundamental and essential to accurate, timely, and fair news reporting of civil court actions, and, thus, vital to the public’s ability to monitor the activities of the judicial branch of government,” said the complaint.It also seeks attorney fees under the federal statute that applies to constitutional cases.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads