MEMO
TO: Court Technology Committee
FROM: Mike Hagburg
RE: Public Access Rule
A draft public access to court records rule has been prepared. It is based on the "black letter" portions of the CCJ/COSCA guidelines for access to court records and is in the same format as a Supreme Court administrative rule. It integrates the applicable elements of Admin. Rule 41 -- Access to Judicial Records and Policy 215 -- Data Access and Dissemination. The portions of the draft rule that were extracted from AR 41 or Policy 215 are underlined. Some comments are also contained in the draft -- these are in boldface.
Annotated copies of Admin. Rule 41 and Policy 215 containing boldface comments explaining why certain material in these rules was or was not integrated into the draft rule are also attached.
Many of the topics covered by Admin. Rule 41 and Policy 215 were already covered, in
one way or another, by the draft rule. Due to the large size of the draft rule, an effort was
made to limit the amount of material taken from Admin. Rule 41 and Policy 215 and added
to the draft rule, especially when the draft rule already contained similar provisions. Still,
a considerable amount of unique material from Admin. Rule 41 and Policy 215 was added
to the draft rule. As a result, the draft rule is quite lengthy.