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“Most jurisdictions have long since provided the public access to these important public records, and the way to do it is not put it behind a very expensive paywall,” said McElhatton. McElhatton said a wealthy county like Fairfax County can easily absorb that amount, without charging the public. “If the Commonwealth of Virginia is telling the public that this can’t be done, they need to open up their eyes and look across the rest of the country.”Ĭounty budget information shows the CPAN system brings in about $377,000 per year in fees. “You can easily provide access to basic case information online, which almost all other jurisdictions do,” McElhatton said. While McElhatton would support the additional transparency and convenience of being able to access actual documents remotely, at minimum he said he believes Fairfax County should be providing basic docket information remotely. However, Virginia is arguing in a federal lawsuit, filed by Courthouse News Service, that state law precludes posting specific circuit court documents with confidential information. The District of Columbia’s system of providing access to actual documents is similar to the federal PACER - Public Access to Court Electronic Records - system, which currently costs 10 cents per page, although the Senate action is a step toward making it free. “With Fairfax you don’t even know if the case exists or not until you actually go to the courthouse and check,” said McElhatton.
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In Virginia and Maryland, accessing specific documents necessitates a trip to the clerk’s office.
#Access on line free#
While free, remote access is available to basic docket information for most jurisdictions in Virginia, and all of Maryland, the District of Columbia’s online case search for Superior Court provides free access to each document filed in a case. “People who don’t have $600 a year to do a court search really have do take off a half day of work and go spend a day at the courthouse to chase this stuff down,” McElhatton said. Members of the public, including media, can access circuit court records for Fairfax County, in person, in the clerk’s office in the courthouse. “It’s stunning to me that one of the most affluent counties in the country would charge what really seems like predatory rates to provide access to records that aren’t government records, they’re public records,” said McElhatton. The City of Alexandria provides the basic docket information through its own system. Most circuit courts in Virginia provide access to basic docket information through a platform run by Virginia’s Supreme Court. “It’s concerning anytime you have a system in which access to judicial records is based on your ability to shell out hundreds of dollars a year - it really does tilt the scales of justice,” said McElhatton. While all other Northern Virginia jurisdictions provide free, remote public access to basic docket information for individual criminal and civil cases in circuit court, Fairfax County’s CPAN system costs $150 per quarter, or $600 per year. “In Fairfax County, these records are behind a paywall that costs you hundreds of dollars a year,” said Jim McElhatton, a private investigator and longtime journalist. Now that the Senate Judiciary Committee has passed a bill that would allow the public free access to federal court records, in part to ensure people with low incomes have access, some say one of the nation’s wealthiest counties, Fairfax County, Virginia should do the same for its circuit court. Business & Finance Click to expand menu.