A coalition of free press and civil rights advocates, as well as academic leaders, want the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to fix a problem that is closing millions of court records from public view.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association sent a letter Tuesday morning signed by eight other academics and First Amendment advocates asking Chief Justice Max Baer to examine the way county clerks are handling conviction records under Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate law.
The Legislature passed the law with the intent of automatically sealing criminal records for people with low-level misdemeanor convictions who have gone 10 years without a new conviction. The law also includes a provision that seals criminal records pertaining to all charges that did not lead to a conviction.
And that second provision is where the problem arises.
As previously reported by PennLive, this means clerks of courts – the county elected officials in charge of maintaining criminal records – are sealing access to entire case files or significant portions of cases for convictions that were never meant to be covered by the law. PennLive found multiple murder, rape, assault and other convictions where all of the records that detail the allegations against the person that were sealed from the public.
The convictions remain on the person’s record but all documents used to support the convictions are inaccessible.
Clerks are completely sealing cases rather than removing information about dropped charges because they are concerned about releasing information they are not supposed to. Advocates, however, say the law is being misapplied in a way that undermines the public trust in police, prosecutors and courts.
“The American system of justice is founded on principles of openness and transparency. Indeed, our Commonwealth’s Constitution unambiguously states that ‘[a]ll courts shall be open,’” the letter reads. “Open courts promote public confidence in the judicial system by helping to ensure that it is fair, consistent, and accountable. Meaningful access requires that the public be able to understand the particulars of a given case.”
A review of cases in Franklin County by PennLive uncovered that out of more than 3,050 convictions in 2016 and 2018, only about 625 cases were available to view by the public. Nearly 80 percent of cases, including four murder convictions, were completely inaccessible to the public.
PennLive, along with other news outlets, provided information to the Reporters Committee and PNA to help support the letter. It provides examples of conviction records being sealed in Franklin, Cumberland, Dauphin, Philadelphia, Montgomery, Schuylkill, Northumberland, York and Mifflin counties.
“Based on the examples listed above and applicable law, we respectfully urge this Court to exercise its constitutional authority to evaluate the issue and take steps to ensure the Unified Judicial System’s role in supervising judicial records is compliant with constitutional and common law requirements for open courts,” the letter reads.
Rep. Sheryl Delozier, a Republican from Cumberland County, was one of the prime sponsors of the 2018 law. She was made aware of the problems with access to records by PennLive and said she would work on a solution either through administrative changes or introducing new legislation to change the law.
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