Administrative Office of the Courts to appeal order on Case Search ‘key’

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The Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts will appeal a judge’s ruling ordering it to disclose a key to identify District Court judges in the public Case Search database.

Judges’ names are not displayed in District Court cases in the database but rather are represented by a three-character code. The Abell Foundation filed a Maryland Public Information Act request for the key last year.

The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) claimed the document was an administrative record and could not be turned over under the Maryland Rules. Baltimore City Circuit Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill ruled last month that the court must turn over the key, finding the request was not required to be denied.

The Maryland Office of the Attorney General, which represents the AOC, noted an appeal late Tuesday. The parties agreed to a stay of Fletcher-Hill’s order while the appeal is pending.

The Maryland Rules say the custodian of a record “shall deny inspection” if the record is prepared by or for a judge or other judicial personnel, is purely administrative in nature — but is not a local rule, policy or directive — and is not filed with the clerk or required to be. Fletcher-Hill ruled that the key is “purely administrative” but only because of a policy or directive to use the codes.

The director of administrative services for the District Court of Maryland explained in an affidavit that judges joining the District Court bench are assigned a unique three-digit alphanumeric code that is used by clerks who input information into the computer system.

The motion filed to stay the judgment alleges the court’s conclusion that the key is a “local rule, policy or directive” is incorrect because it does not contain directions, instructions, requirements or procedures governing court procedures.

“Here, the court stretches to find that the district court had a uniform practice of using the codes and on that basis concludes that the edit table must be disclosed as an integral part of implementing that practice,” the motion states. “The text of the Rule offers no support for that construction.”

The impetus of the lawsuit was Abell’s desire to “decode” District Court judge names to look at trends in bail determinations in Baltimore. The information would be obtained from Case Search using a tool developed by the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service that “scrapes” data from the site.

Abell has argued that the case deals with fundamental access to court proceedings, which Fletcher-Hill rejected because no public courtroom has been closed and no docket or file has been sealed. Abell conceded it could figure out the judges’ names by observing dockets around the city.

The Maryland Judiciary has limited its arguments to its reading of the rule and the conclusion that the AOC was required to deny access to the key.

District Court Chief Judge John P. Morrissey said Tuesday that he was aware of the lawsuit but declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.