Remove pay wall on federal court records

Since 2010, the Houston Police Department has shot more than 320 people, killing 98 of them. But despite all the attention to social justice in our communities at the moment, it is needlessly difficult to know the aftermath of those shootings. Were the officers prosecuted? Was HPD sued? Who won in court? Was justice served?

There’s no easy way to find answers to these questions. This is because the federal courts, where most police misconduct cases are filed, do not track these cases or reliably record their outcomes. The public, journalists, lawmakers, advocates and even the police themselves remain in the dark about the extent to which courts have responded to, remedied or deterred police misconduct.

The answers to these questions are often contained in court records documenting our justice system’s successes and failings. However, those same records are difficult to access, especially on a scale necessary for a systematic study of America’s courts.

Court records, unlike other federal government records, are locked behind a paywall. It’ll cost you 10 cents per page to read them online — or even just to view your search results. That means to engage in meaningful oversight, journalists, advocacy groups or even everyday Texans would need to review thousands of records, at an unsustainable cost of time and money.

Assuming time and money are no obstacle, navigating the antiquated system for accessing the records — known as PACER — requires a combination of luck and skill to locate specific documents. The system’s cumbersome nature and outdated architecture are hardly userfriendly. Often searches return information that is of little value — but you pay for the results anyway.

As our state’s watchdogs, Texas journalists regularly engage in government oversight, ensuring it operates in the public’s interest. But you likely know that relentless budget cuts and staff reductions have made this kind of public-interest, watchdog journalism much less common. For journalists keeping an eye on our court system, the work is expensive, time consuming and requires significant expertise.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can build a system that permits free and open access to court records, allowing journalists — and others — the ability to examine these documents just like they can examine the FEMA reports, congressional roll call votes and nearly every other executive or legislative record.

With a $5 million award from the National Science Foundation, our team is creating an Open Knowledge Network to increase transparency around court records. Our system, called SCALES, will allow users to engage in natural-language searches of the records — the same way you use Google to search the internet.

With the help of SCALES, journalists, attorneys, scholars — and even judges — will be able to quickly answer important questions about the justice system. The capacity to analyze large amounts of data holds enormous potential, but it requires being able to access court records without paying ten cents per page.

Making public records free just makes sense. Assembling and disseminating information to the public is a core function of a democratic government. Journalists, attorneys and researchers regularly rely on federal records to hold the government accountable, outline legal strategies and evaluate policy implementation.

As news organizations around the state commemorate Sunshine Week, a nationwide initiative focused on highlighting the importance of open government and public records, we urge you to contact our Texas congressional delegation to voice your support for court records that are open and free to access. Tell them you support the Open Courts Act, a bipartisan bill that has passed the House and awaits a hearing in the Senate and would eliminate most access fees and align the judiciary with the rest of the federal government. It’s time we let a little sunshine into the federal courts.