Federal Judge Orders Cook County To Fix Electronic Record Access

CHICAGO, IL — A federal judge gave the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court until Feb. 7 to make electronic court filings immediately available to media outlets. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly issued the order in a case filed last year by Courthouse News Service that accused Clerk Dorothy Brown's office of taking days release documents filed electronically to the public. Brown must "provide access to newly e-filed civil complaints" as soon as they are filed, according to the ruling.

Cook County courts had traditionally allowed journalists to review complaints just as they are filed, according to the suit. But when Brown's office began transitioning to an electronic filing system beginning in January 2015, it stopped printing out new complaints. As a result, reporters can only review "e-filed" complaints after they are processed into the system and officially "accepted."

Brown argued that some delays were necessary to check for confidential court filings and that minor delays did not qualify as a constitutional violation. The media outlet argued the way Cook County was going about digitizing records actually held back press access.

Judge Kennelly recognized “the fact that ‘the newsworthiness of a particular story is often fleeting’" and concluded that where there's a first amendment right to information, access to it should be "immediate and contemporaneous," according to Courthouse News.

"In fact, Brown has made no effort to explain why it is not feasible for her to adopt any one of the various methods that numerous other state and federal courts currently use to provide public access to e-filed
complaints before they have been fully processed," Kennelly wrote. "For that reason alone, Brown has failed to meet her burden of demonstrating that her policy of delaying access to e-filed complaints until official acceptance is narrowly tailored to preserve any higher value."

According to the Chicago Tribune, about 62 percent of the county's filings are still received on paper.

Separately, the Illinois Supreme Court recently gave the clerk's office a six-month extension to a statewide mandate for e-filing following her request for a one-year extension.

» Read the U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly's Jan. 8 Memorandum Opinion and Order

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