Carey - this is a good blog you should share links with!
http://thefloridamasochist.blogspot.com ... award.htmlAlso, check this out! Maybe you should contact the Florida First Amendment Foundation and the writers of this article pubished by the Herald-Tribune?
Civil suits disappear on secret docket
A Herald-Tribune review of sealed cases in Sarasota prompts worries about public's right to access.
By MATTHEW DOIG and TODD RUGER
STAFF WRITERS
todd.ruger@heraldtribune.comSARASOTA -- Attorney Daryl Brown's connection to a major political fundraising scandal in Florida makes the legal battle with his former law firm potentially embarrassing.
So in 2004, Brown's lawyers asked Circuit Judge Rick De Furia to seal the case from public view, a request not usually granted. Even though he had no legal justification, De Furia obliged.
Court clerks then used De Furia's order to remove any mention of the case from the public docket.
As far as the public was concerned, the case vanished.
It is one of a dozen civil court cases in Sarasota County that have disappeared in the past five years, put on a secret docket that prevents the public from knowing the cases exist.
A Herald-Tribune review of the circuit's sealed cases revealed a number of problems that combine to obstruct the public's right to oversee its justice system.
De Furia agreed to unseal his case, but two other judges have refused to provide any information on what they sealed. They won't provide the names of the parties involved or the orders they signed explaining why the cases should be kept secret.
In addition, Clerk of Court Karen Rushing's computer system that keeps track of every lawsuit and court case is programmed to remove any mention of sealed cases, leaving the public no way to know they ever occurred.
And in half of the sealed cases, the entire case had been improperly sealed although the judges intended just certain portions, or nothing at all, to be closed from the public.
Officials in Manatee and Charlotte counties said they had no cases sealed by judge's order, only adoptions and others automatically sealed by statute.
The problems in Sarasota mirror those that have arisen around the country as newspapers and open government advocates have pushed recently to review how judges and court clerks handle secret cases.
An April report in the Miami Herald about a secret docket in
Broward County prompted Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist to launch an investigation into the practice.
The situation in Sarasota appears similar to what happened in Broward, said Crist spokeswoman Joann Carrin. But Crist, who is also a Republican candidate for governor, will wait to see how Sarasota's judicial system resolves the problem before he gets involved, Carrin said.
The director of the
nonprofit Florida First Amendment Foundation said secret dockets violate the American ideal that government should be open to its citizens.
"Whether it's an intentional attempt to protect certain powerful people, or an inadvertent miscommunication between the clerk and judge, it closes access and makes the hair on the back of our neck stand up," Adria Harper said.
Rushing and Chief Judge Robert Bennett say they are considering changes to improve the public's access and avoid future miscommunications.
"We need to be a little more careful in drafting some sort of a policy," Bennett said. "Something that allows us to continue to protect people when it's supposed to protect them and still allow some level of public access."
Cases sealed
Last month, the Herald-Tribune asked Rushing for the names of the people involved in civil cases that had been sealed during the past five years. The paper also requested the judge's written order to seal each case.
Most judges complied with the request, or realized for the first time that the cases never should have been sealed at all.
But in a memo responding to the Herald-Tribune, Judge Deno Economou said he would not provide any information about two cases he sealed because "none of the parties are public figures."
All information about those cases, including who is involved and why the public can't know about it, remain secret.
De Furia also claimed he sealed his case because the people involved were of no interest to the public. Unlike Economou, he immediately agreed to unseal it following the Herald-Tribune's request.
But De Furia's case, a suit by law firm Clark DeMay Fara and Froman against former partner Brown, does involve a well-known figure.
In the mid-1990s, Brown was involved in a scheme that funneled illegal campaign donations from Riscorp, a now-defunct insurance company, to politicians in a position to aid the company. His role earned him the first of two suspensions by the Florida Bar.
According to a letter from his former firm, the partners sued him, in part, to recoup $100,472 in legal fees for his "criminal defense in the whole sordid RISCORP affair."
After the Herald-Tribune's request, De Furia notified the attorneys in the case that he planned to unseal the records because he had not found "any legal authority" for it to have been sealed in the first place.
De Furia, who said he has known Brown for years and testified on his behalf during his disciplinary hearing before the Bar, said he will be more cautious about sealing cases in the future.
Harper, of the First Amendment Foundation, said De Furia's case is troubling because it raises the question of whether judges are sealing cases as favors, and not when a party might be legitimately in danger from the disclosure of information.
"Is this a common practice?" Harper asked. "It should make people wonder what has been closed, and why. Maybe there's not always a legitimate reason for closure."
De Furia said he supports the public's right to access court records, but does not expect most people to review court cases.
"If somebody's going to take that time, then they must not have much of a life," he said.
He added that when he sealed the case, he did not know that court clerks would erase any mention of its existence from the public docket.
"I certainly didn't envision a case would disappear," De Furia said.
Cases gone
If someone wants to review a malpractice lawsuit against their doctor, or a small claims case against a contractor he might hire, the computer terminals in the clerk of court's office post the information from most civil cases. The database of cases can be searched by name, case number or date filed.
But anyone looking for the 12 cases sealed in Sarasota's circuit during the past five years would have come up empty.
Rushing initially defended the way her system was programmed to strip the numbers of sealed cases off the public terminals. She said it prevented her office from unlawfully revealing sensitive information.
And it's common knowledge that they can be provided on request, as they were to the Herald-Tribune, Rushing said.
But the judges who had sealed the cases said they had no idea Rushing's office had cleansed the public record of the case numbers.
Even if a case is sealed, the fact it took place, and that it has been sealed, should be evident to the public so that the closure can be reviewed or contested.
Removing any trace of cases from the public docket was ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court last year because it goes against the idea that the taxpayer-funded court system generates public information.
The so-called "super sealed" cases also raise questions of whether judges use their power to improperly restrict public access.
"Information that is supposed to be available to the public should be available to the public," said Carrin, Attorney General Crist's spokeswoman.
Judges Becky Titus, Diana Moreland and De Furia have asked Rushing to start posting the unsealed information, including case numbers and names, on the public access terminals. Rushing said her technology department will work out a way to do that without divulging sealed information.
Rushing said she has also talked with Chief Judge Bennett about ways to make court orders more specific, preventing the improper sealing of entire cases.
Six of the sealed cases were not supposed to be completely sealed. They ranged from probate cases to a collection suit against a wealthy doctor and businessman.
Moreland said only the names of the parties involved should have been sealed in the domestic case she presided over.
"If you do limit access to the public, it's supposed to be as bare-bones as possible," she said.
Last modified: July 30. 2006 5:04AM
