by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
More than guilty verdicts or plea bargains, the primary product of the Duval County Courthouse is paperwork. But the clerk of courts is planning for a new era when attorneys and judges tote disk drives into the courtroom instead of file folders.
Under Clerk of Court Jim Fuller’s direction, the office already allows filing online for small claims cases. That’s the first step in a two-year march toward preparing the Courthouse to go paperless.
Fuller has the technology in place to put the paperwork for evictions and child support cases online and expects to do so soon. He thinks it will take about 22 months to install an electronic case management network that would allow the Clerk’s mountain of files to be mined online.
Actually, a mountain is a bit of an overstatement. A warehouse the size of a football field would be more accurate.
The paperwork generated by the County court system long ago outgrew the Courthouse’s available space. The ever-expanding archives took up so much space and manpower that Fuller moved about a century’s accumulation of pleadings, filings and court orders to a 100,000-square-foot Southside warehouse.
“There were so many files that we ended up having to outsource our records,” said Fuller.
Convenience, accessibility and accountability are Fuller’s guideposts as he forays into cyberspace. His first priority is keeping the records secure. Back up electronic files would likely be stored in a fireproof, waterproof off-site facility, he said.
Once Fuller is satisfied that his records will be safely preserved for future generations, his next goal is to make them as accessible as possible for current use.
“I look at it like my clients are the public. If I can make it easier for the public to access them and use them, then I’m doing my job,” he said. “From that point of view, what’s better for my clients is going online. If we can save time and money doing it than that’s an added benefit.”
Other than Florida’s public records restrictions, Fuller doesn’t see any limits to what kind of records that can be placed online.
“To me, if it’s not sealed and it’s not a juvenile record, not an adoption or anything, then you should be able to look at them online,” said Fuller. “If it’s a public record you can come down to my office right now and look at it any time.”
Fuller’s expansive embrace of electronic records isn’t shared by everyone. The Florida Supreme Court is giving online court records a deliberate look. The Court’s concern is whether electronic filing and record keeping makes public records too easy to get.
Florida’s public records laws, known as the Sunshine Laws, are among the broadest in the country and are expansive enough that the mayor’s office includes a disclaimer about them in its electronic correspondence. And the Supreme Court has so far been uncomfortable with the thought of all that information being made available at the click of a button, said Fuller.
Fuller intends to follow the Court’s guidance. But he expects the idea to gain traction in Tallahassee, clearing the way for clerk’s offices across the State to move toward paperless file keeping.
“It does make them more accessible, that’s true,” he said. “But if there’s no Social Security number, no phone number, it’s not sealed and it’s something you can look at every day. Then why shouldn’t you be able to look at it online?”