Courthouse News Service
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Local/Community
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A federal appeals panel has tossed out a Chicago federal judge’s order requiring Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown to provide immediate public access to all civil lawsuits filed in the county, saying the judge was wrong to intervene in the matter both because the state courts had not been given the chance to weight in and because the appellate judges doubted delaying access to filed lawsuits violated anyone’s constitutional rights.
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A federal appeals court in Chicago has slapped a hold on a federal judge’s order to force Cook County’s courts clerk to begin providing the press and public immediate access to publicly filed court documents, at least until the appellate judges can rule on the court clerk’s claims that the federal judge had no business issuing the order, on the grounds of protecting the public’s First Amendment rights to public information.
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Moments after a Chicago federal judge chided her for creating a system designed to take an “end-run” around the First Amendment’s guarantee of public access to public information, the clerk of Cook County’s courts has asked a federal appeals court to put a hold on the judge's order and further remove the matter from the judge’s consideration entirely.
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Saying public access to publicly-filed legal documents is not “some sort of frill” feature of a modern court system, a Chicago federal judge has denied a request from the Cook County court clerk’s office for more time to comply with the judge’s order to begin providing immediate access to all electronically filed lawsuits filed in her office.
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As she prepares to make her case to a federal appeals panel, the clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court is also awaiting an intervention from Illinois’ highest state court on her request for relief from state court rules she argues preclude her from abiding by a federal judge’s order to make publicly filed lawsuits immediately available to the press and the public.
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With just days to spare before her office would need to comply with a federal judge’s order to begin providing the public and the press immediate access to electronically filed lawsuits, the clerk of Cook County’s courts has appealed the ruling.
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A Chicago federal judge has told the Cook County Circuit Clerk’s office it cannot withhold electronically filed lawsuits from public view for days at a time pending administrative processing because, to do so, violates the right of the press and the public under the First Amendment to immediate access to otherwise public documents.
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A news service which reports on litigation and trends in civil courts across the country has sued the Cook County Circuit Clerk’s office, saying the clerk’s policy of withholding many civil lawsuits from public view for days at a time pending administrative processing violates the U.S. Constitution and goes against years of standard practices regarding freedom of access to public information.
