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David Stanley Ford

What court's access limits could mean for you
What state Supreme Court's access limits could mean for you

By Nolan Clay    Comments Comment on this article11
Published: March 13, 2008

Want to check out if your new boyfriend was ever charged with domestic abuse, soliciting a prostitute or some other crime?

Maybe you want to look over lawsuits against your doctor before you agree to that surgery?

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How they voted
•Justices concurring with the rules were Chief Justice James R. Winchester, Justice Rudolph Hargrave, Justice Joseph M. Watt, Justice Tom Colbert and Justice John F. Reif.

•Concurring in part and dissenting in part were Justices Yvonne Kauger and James Edmondson.

•Dissenting was Justice Steven W. Taylor.

•Justice Marian Opala did not participate in the rule-making.

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And, if you're an OSU fan, maybe you want to see for yourself what's new in the civil case against former basketball coach Eddie Sutton?

New secrecy rules on court records will make that harder to do. The rules issued by a split state Supreme Court have outraged many.

"I think it's fair to say the rule creates more problems than it addresses for prosecutors, judges, court clerks, lawyers, title companies, law enforcement, journalists and, most importantly, citizens,” Oklahoma Court Clerk Patricia Presley said Wednesday.

Under the new rules, court records can no longer be filed with such personal information as birth dates, complete Social Security numbers and complete home addresses.

Justices said other personal information — such as employment history and medical records — should be excluded where possible.

Also, at least for a time, the public will no longer be able to see online any state court documents. The state Supreme Court is still allowing Internet access to a case's history, but anyone wanting to see the actual case file will have to go to the courthouse.

The new rules go into effect June 10.

Justices said they are concerned about privacy rights, harassment and identity theft. But there were many complaints Wednesday that the rules went too far. And some officials were surprised by the rules and have not had time to study them yet.

"From what I have read in the newspaper accounts, I agree more with the dissent than with the majority opinion. I always err on the side of openness,” Attorney General Drew Edmondson said.

Not everyone is happy
Among the complaints: Without personal information such as birth dates and complete addresses, it is harder to confirm whether someone — such as a new boyfriend — has a criminal history, particularly someone with a common name.

One Oklahoma City private investigator, Robert Smart, suggested the new rules could even shield sex offenders from public detection.

A retired travel agent, Michael Grable of Yukon, said he used the court records to check out customers.

"It makes a big difference when somebody's going to pay with a big check, you can go in there and find out, ‘Well, hey, this person has been nailed for embezzlement or writing bad checks,'” he said.

"Who put these stupid judges in there in the first place? We did. Next time, don't automatically vote to renew their terms. Next time vote them out,” Grable said.

Justices apparently plan to ban Internet access to actual court documents until court records in all 77 counties can be shown online, according to a dissent to the rules. Only a few county court clerks have been putting records online.

One is Payne County, where Sutton was sued after a drunken driving accident in 2006. Under the new rules, it will take a trip to Stillwater to see what's up in that case.

Oklahoma City attorney Irven Box said he's going to have to drive to more counties to look up records because of the new rules.

"That's going to cost my clients more money and me more money,” Box said.

The executive director of the state's attorneys association urged restraint.

"We all just need for the moment to take a deep breath and really see what the effect of this is going to be,” said John Morris Williams of the Oklahoma Bar Association. "I feel pretty comfortable that if what the court has proposed is not workable or it's got unforeseen consequences that they'll revisit it. We've all lived a long time without the Internet.”

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David Stanley Ford


Related Topics: Science and Technology, Technology, Judiciary, U.S. Courts, Internet, Information Privacy


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The shallow mindset of Oklahoma leadership is personified in comment by John Morris Williams of the Oklahoma Bar Association "We've all lived a long time without the Internet.” The world lived a long time without the cell phone too, but try taking that away from Mr. Williams, and see how he responds.
Nick, Norman - Mar 19, 2008 at 9:54 am
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This limited access stems probably, from the firing of the people in power positions who have not paid their property taxes which in turn, pays for schools.
Candace, Lakeland - Mar 14, 2008 at 11:29 am
This court is a disgusting lot. They'd better be looking for new jobs.
c, Oklahoma City - Mar 13, 2008 at 9:08 pm
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I find it sad that the Highest Court in the state wants to drag down what has become a model system for information for the sake of an "anonymous" complaint. If they are so concerned they should make it a multi-level system so the public can still get basic info and lawyers and investigators can get other info as needed.
Kevin, Del City - Mar 13, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Tamara, your son could file a motion to have the record expunged. Unfortunately, you would probably need a lawyer to handle it. Good Luck.
Allison, Noble - Mar 13, 2008 at 5:47 pm
OSCN affects people in a lot of ways. My son had charges against him (non violent) 6 yrs ago. All charges were dismissed. But to this day it affects him getting a job. He has actually had people tell him that they "Looked him up" and saw the charges. I would like to see cases with dismissed charges done away with also.
tamara, oklahoma city - Mar 13, 2008 at 4:24 pm
What happened to the public records act? sure, we lived a long time without the internet, but back then, there weren't as many problems with identity theft and 4 year olds dragging guns to school. We also didn't have the issue of wondering whether the person driving the security vehicle in our neighborhood/grocery store parking lot/campus is a child molester. I'd like to know if that guy eyeballing my house from his security vehicle on the street is actually watching for prowlers or a prowler himself!
Deanna, Oklahoma City - Mar 13, 2008 at 2:36 pm
John Morris Williams seems rather cavalier in his statement that "We've all lived a long time without the Internet." I believe he is missing the point. We did live without the Internet, but we don't have to any longer. I hope a middle ground can be found on the issue of access to public records.
Deb, Arcadia - Mar 13, 2008 at 12:16 pm
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Losing the ability to retrieve documents defeats the whole purpose of OSCN. They might as well shut it down. This will dramatically increase legal and business costs and add unnecessary delay.
Steven, Oklahoma City - Mar 13, 2008 at 11:39 am
Seems like to me just a software change at OSCN will fix the problem. If only the last 4 digits of the SSN are visible, then it fixes that complaint. You know, your DMV record is public record, your vehicle registration information is public record. All you have to do is go down to a tag agency for a print-out of this data. Its not free, but it is available to anyone who asks for it. You can be driving down the street and if I want to know where you live all I have to do is note your tag info. There is already a system being deployed by larger police departments that takes snap shots of vehicle tags from a camera mounted on the front grill of the police car. It is in active scan mode all the time and constantly reports registration info on vehicles. It it gets a "hit" like a stolen tag or vehicle it alerts the officer. There are systems that read radio signals like passing vehicles to determine what radio station you are tuned. Then it adjusts the ad accordingly, like Stetson for people listening to country music. There's tests being done on systems that read cell phone polling signals to customize greetings. You could walk into a store and it says, "Hello Mr. Smith, riding mowers are on sale in lawn and garden, you also have a store credit you haven't spent." Minority Report is rapidly becoming a reality.
John, Stigler - Mar 13, 2008 at 9:05 am
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We need more transparency in government, not less. These records belong to the public and the judges should respect that.
johnny, oklahoma city - Mar 13, 2008 at 6:15 am

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