Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Judiciary committee this what are we Wednesday afternoon, February fourth. So we're gonna move to bill five seventy two, h five seventy two. It involves it's relating to permitting public access for electronic criminal case records. It's a short form, so I'm gonna need a motion to take it off the wall, which I'll take in a moment. But I I was contacted back in December after the date for our due date for submitting bill requests by the New England First Amendment Coalition and the Vermont Journalism Coalition asking about access to criminal court filings on the internet because right now they actually have to go in person to the courts. And so I put in a short form. It sounded like a good idea. I put in a short form bill. I reached out to the court to see if this is something we should take up, and indeed I think that's what I heard from folks. So I would like to take it up, and we do have language to replace the short form, but I do need initially an amendment, a motion to take H572 off of the ball. So moved. Second. All those in favor, please raise your hands. Any opposed? Okay. So with that, I'll turn it over to Yeah, you want to take that off the

[Unidentified Committee Member]: wall? So ceremony

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I didn't know I had to do that. Just overworked. So we do have language that Michelle will go over, which would implement this request. So over to you, Michelle. Thanks for being here.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you for inviting me. So for the record, Michelle Child's Office of Legislative Counsel. And everyone should have a copy of what it looks like, strike all amendment to H-five 72, Strat 1.1. We're working in Title 12, which is your court procedure title in Section five regarding the dissemination of electronic case records. So this statute was originally adopted a number of years ago when Internet, not brand new, but still fairly new. And looking at the dissemination of records, when we're talking about this, we're talking specifically about the electronic access. So I want to make clear that these records that are public and involve criminal cases are available at forehands. So we're just talking about the method of access in this particular circumstance. And you'll see in the language in Section one that right now under current law, says the Port should not permit public access via the Internet to criminal, family or probate case records. And what it's doing is this proposal is striking out the prohibition on electronic access to the criminal case records. And then you'll see down in subsection C, there's a new subsection that procedures governing public access via the Internet to criminal case records are to be set forth in rules promulgated by the court. So I'm sure you are going be hearing from the court administrator today, and she can talk to you about what they have. You can go online, I can send a link to folks on the Vermont Rules for Public Access to Court Records. That's available probably on the judiciary's website, but I can also send you a link to Alexa's Connection if you wanna take a look at those. And so this bill is pretty straightforward in terms of like a drafting. It's pretty simple there. It's a policy issue for you about whether or not in the twenty years or so since this statute has been adopted, our circumstances such that it requires a change in approach. I did just want to mention that so you're taking out the prohibition, and then it would be up to the court to be promulgating rules about how and if they would be providing those electronic case records. I did provide the chair with a case out of the Fourth Circuit that was on point around this particular issue where local government was providing just only in kind of at the particular government building access, public access to certain records, but were allowing attorneys to obtain those records through electronic means. And that was challenged, but it was upheld. And I don't want to get too far into that now, but I just want to let you know that that's out there. So we're not in the Fourth Circuit, we're in the second. So it's not that it would be necessarily required to be providing that. The records are available in the courthouses. So I'm sure you'll hear from the witnesses that that has become a cumbersome way to have to access these records, and it'd be much easier for them to do it through electronic means.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So where are are we expanding in any way who can access these records? No. So it's the same people, it's just a matter of changing how they're accessing.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You got it. You got it. So like as an attorney, I have access through, register and I have certain access because want, because right now attorneys who are appearing in court, even though I don't, but I have to file for my re licensing or access certain things. And I have a way to access those electronically because all lawyers are now required to file electronically. But that is not available for the public and the public also including the press. So on page one, line ten, eleven, and 12, by crossing that out, guess I don't quite understand what it does by crossing that out. By crossing that out, is that right so in the first sentence, you say, you know, the public access is prohibited for criminal cases. And then that language that struck out is an exception to clarify that the court may permit criminal justice agencies. So all those groups that we talked about last year who had access to sealed records, they could be provided with electronic access. But if you're taking away the prohibition, you don't need exception. So that's not removing that for them.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Are we going to walk through the language?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I thought I did, but

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I don't know. I was

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just kind of summarizing rather than going line by line in such a short build,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm Hey, Greg. Somehow missed that. Maybe I wasn't actually here for the quorum.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do want me to do a No, no, you're good.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But I did want to I've got a question that may seem like a silly question. What did the original language say on the short? If you have it in front of you. Yeah.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think I actually couldn't find my file this morning. I think it just

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: does anybody Just curious. That's all.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can pull it up. It's on my computer. But I'm sure I just said something in general like

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I probably could have done that. You know? Introduced you. So before we get to the witnesses, let me set this up a little bit more as well because especially given what we already heard this morning was a situation where we're talking about rules and whether the legislature should do something or the court should do something. And so the simple part of this is it moves the legislative bar from this. There's a decision of whether we should spell out what kind of access there is. This bill does not go in that approach because in a conversation with other folks and understanding what other states in the region do, it sounds like it's more standard that for this kind of internet access that it's done through court rules. And there are different levels of access depending on the state. And that certainly it seems at least this bill takes the approach that the court is gonna figure out how exactly and what exactly is gonna be assessed. I just wanted to kind of flag that for folks that, I mean, we could presumably decide that we wanted to do this, but that's not the approach that we have to do. Did I?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You got it, right. And I'm sure the witnesses will talk to you about your different perspectives on the pros and cons of making these records available. And at the time, Eric had worked on this originally. I think it was maybe 2005. But I remember at the time, lot of the discussions going on in the General Assembly were now that you had the internet and things were available and people could start Googling things and finding things, there was a lessened expectation of privacy with regard to certain matters. And so the legislature was trying to balance that. So access to government documents, whether it's someone's criminal history record through BCIC or electronic access to certain court records and trying to figure out at the time what's the right balance between people's, if anyone has any privacy rights anymore, and people having access to how the government is functioning.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And one thing I would add is if it's gonna be going through the rules process, the legislature has a chance to weigh in on that through the joint rules committee.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And I'm sure that probably Terry can talk to you. I don't know if you guys already talked about it this morning, but just a little bit more about the rules process and the opportunity for public comment and how they can be for the rules committee. And so there's still an opportunity for the legislature to weigh in once the details are fleshed out by the board.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, all right. Any other questions for Michelle? Or for me, since I've been testifying apparently as well. No, I'm not. Guiding the committee. All right. So we will start with Kristen Halton next. Kristen, thank you Can I for talk about that? Yeah, please go. Please go. Yes. Great. Thank you for such short notice being able to be here. So if you can identify yourself for the record. Sure.

[Kristen Fountain (Vermont Journalism Coalition)]: I am Kristen Fountain. Just this week was hired as the new coordinator for the Vermont Journalism Coalition. It is a new organization. It was founded last summer. We just have a board of directors as of December, and now I'm on board. So we're moving up. But basically,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: we

[Kristen Fountain (Vermont Journalism Coalition)]: were formed to be a convening organization across media. Like, there's a broadcast association, there's a press association. This is like, we can all talk to each other here. We can advocate together for things that we want, and that we think are priorities. The other thing that it's really focused on is finding new and creative ways to collaborate to increase sustainability in the news, particularly for small local newspapers and other websites that are really covering the very highly local events that we all care so much about, one of which is unfortunately like criminal prosecution. So that is one reason why I'm here. We had a great event this morning where we really celebrated a lot of these local youth. There's an award that you funded last year, the Local Civic Journalism Award. We'll be asking for a similar size appropriation again. And, yeah, we were awarded some small stipends to 16 different local news organizations. Thank you very much. Anyway, I can speak about that. It's not really point. But anyway, it was really nice, and we had a lot of those organizations here today. All right, so I just want to say thank you so much for taking up this issue. It is an issue that I can just I will speak from the press side. I can imagine the judiciary side as well, because it's an interaction and I can tell you how much time it takes on our side, and it's equally as much time on the other side. So these are public records, we all agree. There are redactions already in them when they are filed. Currently, as of, I understand, 2020, every single file in these cases is filed electronically. They are a PDF. So the situation is so much different than it was when this prohibition was put in place in 2007. You have an enclosed system in which people are getting this information. You're not gonna have a web crawler in there getting people's names. Strongly support allowing electronic access to criminal records. Getting criminal records and following criminal cases is an essential part of the news business. It's part of what we do, and it's part of how we inform the public how the judicial system works and get public buy in for the system. I think to me, the time I mean, So besides the fact that these are public records and should be publicly accessible in a way that is sort of normal to the time period. And I would say normal to the time period now is electronically. Just that is the bottom line. But the time it takes right now for reporters to contact someone in the judiciary, ask them for access to the records, tell them which one. They literally go into the system, download it, email it to us. Oops, I didn't want that one. It was the other one. Oh, not that spelling. We got it wrong. Or, Oh, I actually need this filing and not that one. Or, I would like all of these filings. Can you download them all? So we have an assistant downloading, attaching, sending. So these records are being shipped electronically. It's just for having to do them click, click, click by hand. So I guess what I am seeing is our smallest, especially, but up to our biggest newsrooms, are really strapped. And our most important resource that we want to maintain is the time, our reporters' time. That is the precious resource. So if we can reduce their time spent tracking cases, that's a huge win for all our members. So I guess the only thing I'll say is I'm really, really pleased that we're taking this route. We were in touch with the First Amendment Coalition because we do think there is a strong fact pattern here that would allow for a challenge. But obviously, we all prefer this fruit. So we are very appreciative and want to be helpful in any way. I would be very happy to participate in rulemaking, very interested. And I don't think the actual records are going to change. It's just going to make everyone's life easier.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Questions for Chris? Just one question. So how often do the reporters actually have to go physically to the courthouse to get files? Because it sounds like one of the routes is to contact a clerk and if they're not doing a 100 other things, perhaps getting the document that way.

[Kristen Fountain (Vermont Journalism Coalition)]: Like everything, it's very specific to the reporter and to the situation. If the news organization is located in the same town as the court, it might be just as easy to go to the court. If they're located an hour away, they're gonna go the phone route. But the phone route is also very hard. Obviously, clerks are very busy. You send them an email, it takes a day. These are just basic questions of when's the You can look up when the hearing is, but what's the hearing about? What was the latest filing related to this hearing? Just the basic facts of any criminal case, you have to go through this pretty significant effort to access this information. And our smallest newsrooms are the ones that maybe track the most primes, to be honest, because they're the ones really reporting about all of the things that judiciary system does. And these are the folks with the least resources to do this.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Any other questions? Don't see any other questions. Thank you. Very much.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: All right.

[Kristen Fountain (Vermont Journalism Coalition)]: Thank you very much.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, I'll go to John Flowers, who is joining us via Zoom. Thank you for taking the time. Identify yourself for the record and proceed.

[John Flowers (Addison Independent)]: Sure. Can you hear me now?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yes, we can.

[John Flowers (Addison Independent)]: Oh, good, good. So yeah, my name is John Flowers. I'm in my forty first year as a community journalist and have since 1990 worked as a reporter for the Middlebury based Addison Independent. I'm a past president of the, excuse me, Vermont Press Association and a charter member of the Vermont Journalism Coalition Board. You know, sometimes it feels like I began my reporting duties duties while they were still chiseling on stone tablets, but I'm one of the few reporters left in the state, and we are tragically and alarmingly a shrinking profession to remember when all records at the county courthouses were were ink on paper. In the the old days, just go to the former courthouse, county courthouse in Court Square with the defendant's name and offense called from a probably a press police press release, and the the county clerk would walk over to the filing cabinet and pull out the folder, plop it on the desk. I'd tag what I wanted copied, pay my 25¢ a copy, and I'd be gone. But ironically, access to criminal court records has become a little bit more difficult after the technological advances that should make access and retrieval of documents easier. Let me say that we have some very nice professional staff here at the Frank Mahaney Courthouse who who've gotten to know and trust me through the years. And when they're not overburdened by their daily workload, they've accommodated my records requests. But absent this earned trust where my journalists now navigate, you know, a much rougher road as far as making requests. And, you know, if if you live if you work far away from a courthouse, you might have to prepare a request for access form. You might have to wait a couple days ultimately to get the information in question at expense and not always dovetailing with your deadline. You know, we we have I have colleagues who don't work very close to their respective courthouses, and and, you know, having a face to face with a court officer can be a pretty arduous process with commute time and and all that. And, you know, I I I my recollection is reporters have been pushing for online access to criminal records for fifteen years and, you know, we're looking for stuff that is made available publicly post arraignment. You know, we're not looking for anything before it's ready before it's ready. It's just information that should be public or is public anyway. And to do that electronically would be, I would I would think, a convenience to court staff, certainly to us as reporters. And I would advocate that that that we have that transition to allowing public access electronically to those documents.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Great. Questions for joining our talk. When you're using your hammer and chisel, did you work from the Bedrock Noser?

[John Flowers (Addison Independent)]: That's right. Editor Fred Flintstone.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. That's that's

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: all I got. Oh, no.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I do have a question.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm I'm gonna assume that sometime during your during your career, you know, when you were going to look for me to to get these public records that maybe you were make some days, you would make two or three, maybe four trips to a courthouse?

[John Flowers (Addison Independent)]: Certainly, multiple trips depending on how busy staff were. I mean, we we recognize that the court staff have tons of stuff to do and can only do so much. And and certainly having those documents accessible online would, as I said, would would be good for for both them and us.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much for your testimony. Thank you. So Tommy Gardner, have an enlist, but I see that he is not here. So we go to the state court administrator. Thank you for being here. Thank

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Chair Khorsand, state court administrator. And thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed draft. And I want to just mention from the outset, shouldn't need to be the need for a public records request for the media to obtain copies. Mean, the usual protocol is they call the court and the information is emailed to them. So if that's happening that you're told, Mr Flowers, please let me know. Because you shouldn't have to fill out a public records request to obtain that kind of information. And in terms of what's being proposed, we agree wholeheartedly and concur that the Rules Committee would be typically and is typically the venue through which any kind of restrictions on public access comes about. I did have put canvassing in the New England states, just contacting my counterparts in terms of what their approaches to internet access or online access to criminal records. And it varies from Connecticut, where it's still all paper in the criminal docket. So the online access is kind of a move thing. But otherwise, the rest of them, they all do it by court rule versus statute. I think we might be unique in terms of it being by statute. And that statute, 12 BSA five, has been what's governed us because it's the law in terms of not having access over the internet for criminal court records. But we're more than happy and recognize that that's usually the way that the court, the Supreme Court, would follow through on recommendations from court rules committees. In Vermont, we have a Public Access to Court Records Committee. It's headed up by Judge Tim Massey. And we always have had a media representative on that committee. Mark Davis is the current media representative. And that would be the body that would be taking up the different issues that surround what would be appropriate and reasonable. Just to give you a quick overview in terms of, again, the New England states, we provide docket sheets now. And that seems to be the norm, that in terms of docket sheets, a case summary, if you will, to any member of the public. States have, like we do, elevated access, if you will. Certainly, if you're a party to the case, you're entitled to the case records, or if you're an attorney representing somebody in the case. It also can vary in terms of, for example, Massachusetts, they only allow a search by case number. They don't allow search by defendant's name. There's kind of a whole variety of different restrictions. And I think what will be the benefit of this exercise is Public Access Support Records Committee will take in this information. We'll look at what's done and see what would make sense. But we certainly favor being able, if it's a public record, making it available as easily as possible. There's a criminal division oversight committee and then a criminal rules committee. And I would assume there would also be input from those committees as well. So that to me is what the process would be as a result of this proposed legislation that were to pass. I've spoken with Judge Thomas and he's happy to put it on the agenda. We have the media representative and that would probably be the way through which the information would flow there. But I think to me, it's a logical way to address the request.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So the 07/01/2027, is that sufficient time to go to the rule maker?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Yes, I spoke with Judge Tomasse to that question as well. In general, you're probably familiar, but if there is a proposed rule change, the rules committees meet very regularly. They take in. This would be, for example, put on the agenda. They explore it. The Public Access to Court Records Committee, the composition of the committee, Judge Thomas is the chair. Justice Cohen was the associate justice. We'll be assigning new power liaisons to the floor now that we have a full complement from the floor. There's also staff attorney involved, the Technology Services Center, because with the online access, especially, we have that consideration. And I should mention too the public portal where people can go to the courthouse and access court records, and they then ask for the records to be emailed to them or paper copy made. We're in the process of updating that. Tyler Technologies, the vendor for our electronic case management system, has updated the public portals. And there's a new feature called research that will also be exploring what's feasible. I mean, it was when we first started eCabinet, if you remember ten years ago, could from the public access terminal email from there. So whether or not that would be feasible, we'll be exploring all of that to see what would be the best way. Otherwise, the committee includes judges, court staff, the media member, somebody from state archivists from the BBA law professor. So we try to get a variety of input. And then the public access to court records rules themselves right now list what's public, what's not. You know, if it's a personally identifying information, that's not public. If it's a juvenile matter, it's not public. If it's adoption, it's not public. So those rules already kind of prescribe what measures to provide protection for privacy interests where appropriate. So

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: in the way that rulemaking works recently is rules are promulgated on the January 1 and the July 1. Is that right?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Yes, once they go through the process, typically the committee would work on the drafting, then the proposed language would be put out for public comment. The public comment comes in and then actually your legislative committee on judicial rules is involved to comment. And then ultimately, there may or may not be changes as a result of the public period. And then ultimately, it would go to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court would decide to promulgate. And we have made January 1 and July 1 as the two dates when the rules are promulgated because it became kind of confusing otherwise if you had dates all throughout the year trying to keep track of when rules go into effect and how to count. So January 1 and July 1 are now the two dates when rules, once they become permanent, if you will, go into effect. And Judge Thomas did believe 07/01/2027 would be adequate in order to go through all that process, even if there were comments and we made changes that would allow for enough time to allow the whole they wouldn't be rushed.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Question, Ian. I'm going to use this bill as an opportunity to ask a question that I wouldn't mind to ask. When we're considering public access to online court records, would it be possible to get rid of the AI test box thing that every time you log in to either Odyssey or the online portal, and I think that I am asking this on behalf of every single attorney in the state of Vermont.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: So you have to pick whether there's a window in the picture?

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: No, it's a little worse. Okay. So it's a box of nine things and they're AI generated. It's like, pick all the hats.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's what mean.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Oh, okay. So yes, pick all of the cushions, pick all of the curtains, pick all of the beds, pick all of the purses. And I have been fooled before because they are so weirdly designed in AI that you honestly can't tell.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: I sympathize with that. I've done the same thing. I did pick the cars. That's a piece of a bumper. I guess I'm supposed to include that too.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: And so I find it kind of embarrassing just as an attorney logging in. If the public had to do that every time they wanted to log in, it would just make me feel worse about just sort of the public perception of the judiciary.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Well, I can certainly inquire about that from our TSC team. And actually, this new research, it's called, it's a different approach. But I can definitely relay the dissatisfaction and frustration. I was going to say maybe once you have, but they probably have to check just to make sure it isn't somebody that's trying to get into data scrape or do whatever.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah, I definitely think the security of the system is important, and I don't want to undermine that. But maybe if there is a different way to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: A

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: less unnerving approach.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah, and it's just every single time you log in, and it's the same thing every time.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Well, thank you for bringing that up, and I will inquire, and I can report back on that immediately to find out if we have other options besides that approach.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I really appreciate it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. It's a great answer.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: It is relevant to this bill. I do actually think it's relevant because if you're going to use the same online portal for Odyssey or whatever for someone who wants to log in to that, which I fully support, I would just be like, if I was just a citizen. And I was like, Oh my god, Jishari makes me pick all the curtains every time I have to get.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Well, and for your also, just hopefully, that's helpful information. There's a court users group that the VBA has that their whole purpose is, if there's things like that that are obnoxious or you'd like to have changed, we have what's called a change advisory board that we take in whatever questions, whatever suggestions.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I bet they've I'm sure they've heard about this already, but I inquire.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Okay. I'm on the change advisory board.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Oh, so it's just on the listservs that we complain about it.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Okay. Yeah. But but that's what it's for. Yeah. That's that's a mechanism so that you don't have to wait until somebody's at house of issue to ask for a question.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: No, it's on me.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Because we want to make it as helpful as possible, and we want to be responsive. So don't hesitate if there's things like that to just reach out and can make sure we can get an answer for you.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Absolutely. No, that makes sense. Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Is this gonna reduce staff time? I mean, is this gonna help as far as how busy your staff is?

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Well, right now, people have the option to either ask me that the copies be emailed to them, which does take less time, or they ask for paper copies at the counter, which does involve port staff taking it off the printer, making out the invoice for it because it's making 25¢ a page, I forget. So that would be less onerous. And if it is something that they can then email it to themselves, that would take even more time. But to me, that's something that we would kind of evaluate through the whole process of this and involve court operations as well in the hopes of making that work for everybody with now the technology tools that we have available.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Other questions? No, thank you very much.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Oh, my pleasure. Anytime. And I'll look forward to your inquiries. And I'll make sure that we feel like they're confident.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Mean, if we can have Kim McManus on behalf of the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs. We didn't hear again.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Of course. Kim McManus, Department of State's Attorneys and Chairs. Thank you for having us in. I've not been able to send this around to the department for feedback yet, and I'm happy to do so depending on the direction we go in. The only pause that occurred to me when reading this, and it goes back a little bit to last year when we were talking about the protected information online and talking about the speed of being able to just hop on the internet and access some information versus having to walk down to the courthouse, that we're often weeding out.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: In my mind, we're weeding out the professional journalists versus those who just want to take a look at a silly shit story. And I have full trust in the judiciary and creating rules around this to help with that. As the public records attorney for our department, we often are asked for documents that would be similar to documents that have been filed in court. And my job is to read through those. And yes, they're a public record, but there may be exemptions within that record that need to be redacted. And my only concern, and again, I think this would be addressed via the rules, is something like a probable cause affidavit in certain cases has incredibly personal sensitive information in those documents. And to just have that copy and pasted and put out into the world potentially, again, by not a professional journalist sitting in the room who I know are very sensitive to those types of situations, that just causes concern. And again, I think the rules can address that and or it would change potentially our practice and how we're having things filed or asking for things to be sealed when they're filed to protect some of that information. So that's the only concern that jumps out, that speed of getting information and potentially what that's being used for. Absolutely, it's a public record if it's been filed with the court. But it could be some really terrible unintended consequences with that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And that definitely should be addressed, I would think in the rule making. And if it's not, you'll be in front of the joint judicial rules, deasing that issue with the-

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: We'll be filing our comments, yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And making sure that, yeah. So, no, I appreciate that. That absolutely is the biggest concern.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: All right.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: That's all at this time for us.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: All right, thank you. All right, so Matt Valeria was not quite here yet, so we'll jump over to Anna. I'm gonna try my best, Anna, to why don't you identify your name correctly? Because then I mess up your pronunciation with your name.

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: That sounds great. Hello. I'm Anna Selbrady, and I pronounce my last name like selling Tom Brady.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: You know, and that's exactly how I was going to pronounce it. So I've gone ahead and just jumped out of the lane on that. Thank you for being here, if you can You already identified your name, but with where you're coming from on this issue.

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: Great. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. My name is Anna Selbrady, and I will be speaking in favor of House Bill five seventy two. I'm a third year student at Yale Law School and a student director of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic. The clinic focuses on increasing government transparency, defending the work of news gatherers, and protecting freedom of expression through impact litigation, direct legal services, and policy work. Last year, we were retained by the New England First Amendment Coalition to look at the issues of meaningful access to criminal court records in Vermont. Our work included legislative history research on the origins of the current access restrictions and legal research on their constitutional implications. The state's as mentioned, the state's current access restrictions derive from a state law adopted at the dawn of the Internet when court records were still filed in paper form. This scheme makes it nearly impossible for journalists and members of the public to follow criminal prosecutions and to monitor the functioning of criminal courts. Further, this scheme violates the right of access to criminal court records secured by the federal constitution, the Vermont constitution, and historically rooted common law. I will summarize two of our key findings for you today. First, there is a strong constitutional and common law right of access to judicial records in criminal cases. This access right protects not only against outright denials to public access, but also against burdens that meaningfully impede the public and the press's ability to obtain judicial records. Unconstitutional impediments can include imposing delays, restrictions, or procedural hurdles that prevent timely or effective access records. And the second circuit reaffirmed this principle just last year in courthouse news services versus Corsonas, which you all are likely very familiar with. The court held there that a preaccess review process that delayed press press access to civil complaints violated the First Amendment because of the burden it placed on the meaningful exercise of the underlying right of access to such records at the time of filing. The access restrictions here do a similar thing. They force the public and the press to travel to a courthouse during operating hours and battle a system of bureaucracy to view documents that others can already access from their own homes. In fact, during committee hearings in 2008, before the original bill was enacted, the Senate Judiciary Committee or members of the committee acknowledged that the restrictions as passed would impede in some way these constitutionally protected rights. Second, the rationales that motivated the legislature to restrict access to these records in the first place no longer apply. As part of our research, our team did a deep dive into the legislative history of these restrictions. We listened to committee hearings and examined the report that originally examined potential options for these rules. The legislators then settled on the current restrictions for two reasons, both of which are obsolete today. First, legislators were concerned that putting dockets online would lead to errors because the records were filed in paper form, and the online dockets were being generated by court clerks transcribing that in information from paper files by hand. This concern has been resolved by technological developments over the past two decades. Now, as you all know, court filings must be made electronically in digital form, so there is no transcription taking place. In fact, now it is more efficient for the public to be able to access these records online directly, as discussed, because in person access requires court staff to manage a separate bureaucratic process. But second, legislators at the time also contended that the restrictions were necessary to protect litigants' ostensible privacy interests. But court rules now require attorneys to remove personal information such as social security and bank information from private from public filings. Further, defendants have no legally protectable privacy interest in the records of their publicly conducted prosecutions. In fact, more important defendants' rights are at issue here in the right to an open and transparent trial. The Supreme Court has recognized that our criminal law tradition insists on a public criminal process. Transparency is essential to maintaining public respect for the criminal justice system, ensuring its integrity, and protecting the rights of the accused. Even when this legislation was first enacted, its restrictions went beyond the recommendations of the committee that the legislature had created to study access to judicial records. That committee had recommended providing access to public records online with specific requirements to account for privacy interests, including ensuring that specific records subject to sealing orders and private information like social security numbers would not be made available online. These are the less restrictive means to ensure public access while still protecting these legitimate privacy concerns, which can be used here to ameliorate the concerns raised earlier. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the openness of judicial proceedings is an indispensable attribute of an Anglo American trial, and House Bill five seventy two brings Vermont into compliance with that principle. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much. That was great. And I'm wondering if you have that written testimony that you can provide.

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: Yes. I can do that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Great. And what what was the case again that you mentioned?

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: Yes. I mentioned court sonas, which was decided in the second circuit in 2025.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And do have yeah. What's the citation for that? Yes.

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: I can get that.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: I have it up here.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Sounds like something we should do.

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: Yes. That will definitely be included in my written testimony. That was the case about access to complaints that were filed at about immediate access to complaints that were first filed in Vermont courts. Because the second circuit said that if the press and the public do not have immediate access to these complaints, it's not meaningful access for the purposes of timely reporting. And so under that same principle, the logic

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And so your written testimony has the citation for us, if that's fine.

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: Yes, I wanted to pull it up for you quickly, but I don't have it as immediate

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: as No, want that's fine. If it's gonna be in your written testimony, that's you, have you had a chance to look at the Courthouse News Services versus Smith? It's a fourth circuit case. 126 F. 4,899. Doesn't that allow the court to have some restrictions on on access?

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: Yes. Two things. First, I will answer the easier question, which is the citation for the second circuit is 131FFourth59. I will repeat it again. 131F. Fourth, 59.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We're up to F.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Fourth? Yeah. Very concerning.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Sorry, I didn't remember F. Second. All right, go ahead. Apologize for interrupting. Yeah, it's the second question. No

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: worries. Yes. So the Fourth Circuit case is also similar facts, and it is correct that they're both addressing public access to judicial records. We have a variety of reasons that I can add to written testimony on why the Fourth Circuit is very distinguishable. I honestly do not have that at the top of my head, I want to make sure I pulled them together properly for you. That was something that we looked into earlier, but I just wanted to mention because I know someone had mentioned the Fourth Circuit case earlier today. I feel like in our research, determined that Corzones, who is here, thank you, relates more specifically to the issue here, especially because we are in the Second Circuit and Second Circuit precedent tends to be more favorable toward public access.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay, right. Appreciate that. Yeah, Angela.

[Kristen Fountain (Vermont Journalism Coalition)]: Hi there, Anna. I was wondering if you can say again what you said about the sealable offenses or potentially sealable offenses?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I But heard I wasn't sure if I understood it correctly.

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: Yes. So what I mentioned was that there was a prior report before the 2007 or 2008 legislation came through that suggested options for how to make online access account for privacy interests. And it included, for example, ensuring that specific records subject to sealing orders would not be available online, which makes sense given what I know about federal records, where if a record is sealed, you cannot access it online either. That is also something we can send with our testimony, full report that included suggestions.

[Kristen Fountain (Vermont Journalism Coalition)]: That'd be helpful. Thank you so much.

[Teri Corsones (State Court Administrator)]: Yes. Any other questions?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, thank you very much. Very helpful, Castro. It really helps us understand this better. Really appreciate your time and being here. Thank you. One more thing. Sorry. Anna, your last name is pronounced Sell Brady?

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: Yes. Sel Brady.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: As in Tom Brady? Sel Brady. Yes. That that has to change now. It it's Sel Brady as in Drake, Drake May, May.

[Anna Selbrady (Yale Law School, MFIA Clinic)]: I've gone back and forth on Tom Brady or Brady Bunch, and I've landed on Tom Brady, depending on where I am geographically. That's funny.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Seconds so

[Unidentified Committee Member]: bad. Thank you so much. Yes, exactly. So

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: we still have to hear from Matt Valery, who's not quite here. So we'll take a break and we'll reconvene a quarter after two breaks. And we're also gonna hear from Matt on Friday, the bill that we took up yesterday, So meeting didn't expunge