Contentious Judicial Council Debate on Public Access to Criminal Case Records. About 10 days ago, I posted on the upcoming Judicial Council meeting and the agenda item about electronic access to criminal case records. Tomorrow's Recorder has a story by Jeff Chorney reporting that the measure passed only after a tie-breaking vote by Chief Justice Ronald George:

the debate translated into the most contentious discussion the Judicial Council has had in years. Normally, the council's bi-monthly meetings are subdued, bureaucratic affairs. Nearly every vote is unanimous. But Friday, after almost an hour of arguing, the vote was a 9-9 tie that had to be broken by Chief Justice Ronald George. The chief said he is sure he has had to break a tie vote before, but he could not remember when.

The notice of the amendment has already been posted, and the rule is already effective.
My opinion is that there is no harm in permitting electronic access to public records in very high profile cases (Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, etc.). The press (whether it's The Smoking Gun or more mainstream media, will put those documents in the public domain anyway and electronic access eases the burden on the courts. The interim rule (it's only effective until January 1 of next year), no. 2073.5, seems to only apply to such high-demand cases and requires redaction of personal information.

Down the road, the state courts will have to consider whether to permit electronic access to more run-of-the-mill criminal cases. I view such access for parties, attorneys and the press as generally being a good thing, but there certainly is the potential for abuse and the burden would be tremendous to require redaction of documents in all such routine cases.

Are there any jurisdictions that already have electronic Web-based access to criminal cases documents? Anyone hear of misuse of those records?