{"id":34057,"date":"2011-11-30T07:18:33","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T14:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=34057"},"modified":"2011-12-01T07:01:40","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T14:01:40","slug":"public-online-access-would-bring-courts-into-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/11\/public-online-access-would-bring-courts-into-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Public online access would bring courts into the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

The chief justice of the N.M. Supreme Court<\/a> says he\u2019s determined to improve public access to state court records by making them available\u00a0online.<\/p>\n

If he\u2019s successful, roughly a year from now any document filed in a magistrate or district court in New Mexico will be available to everyone on the Internet.<\/p>\n

In a Santa Fe New Mexican article<\/a> from a month ago, Chief Justice Charles W. Daniels<\/a> and Justice Richard Bosson<\/a> were quoted as saying they support putting court records on the Internet for everyone to access, but at the time there was no certainty that it would be done. A month later, Daniels sounds confident that it can and will happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to get this done,\u201d Daniels told NMPolitics.net.<\/p>\n

E-filing system makes online access possible<\/h3>\n

The Administrative Office of the Courts is in the process of transitioning to an e-filing system<\/a> for attorneys. Lawyers are already filing documents online in several districts around the state.<\/p>\n

The e-filing system also gives lawyers online access to all filings in a case. But the public doesn\u2019t have the same access, at least yet.<\/p>\n

Daniels said the goal is to fully implement the statewide e-filing system by December 2012, beginning with civil cases and then adding criminal cases, and then give the public online access to court records.<\/p>\n

Documents filed in cases before the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court will be added later.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A win for everyone<\/h3>\n

Giving the public online access to court records can\u2019t come soon enough. It\u2019s about time that New Mexico\u2019s courts join the 21st Century.<\/p>\n

Currently, an index of court cases that includes information on each case is available to the public at nmcourts.com<\/a>, but the system doesn\u2019t include actual documents. The feds have provided public access to all federal court records for years at nmcourt.fed.us<\/a>, but people have to pay 8 cents per page for access.<\/p>\n

Daniels said documents filed in state courts will be available to the public for free. Fees attorneys pay to e-file cover the cost of the system.<\/p>\n

And those fees \u2013 $6 to file and $4 to forward the filing to opposing counsel, according to The New Mexican \u2013 are cheaper than the $15-$30 Daniels says lawyers have been spending to file and mail paper copies of documents.<\/p>\n

So the implementation of the e-filing system will be a win for everyone, if it all works out.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope Daniels succeeds in his goal of making court records available to the public online. That would give people a new level of access to the third branch and would be a dramatic win for the open government movement.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Commentary page<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chief justice of the N.M. Supreme Court says he\u2019s determined to improve public access to state court records by making them available online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[161,111],"class_list":["post-34057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-judiciary","tag-open-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}