A Creeping Attempt To Shut Down Hawaii Court Records
02/20/2012
Randy Ching / Civil Beat
Our courts are open in this state and country.
But a little-discussed proposal before the Hawaii Legislature would take a step toward changing that.
SB2517 and HB2636 both carry the same seemingly innocuous description: "Beginning on December 1, 2012, requires the removal of certain certified traffic abstracts records of all alleged moving violations for which the disposition of the case was 'dismissed with prejudice' or 'not guilty', or that occurred more than ten years prior to the date of the request for the abstract, with exceptions."
But what that description doesn't tell you is that anybody requesting court records about traffic violations will have to have more personal information about the subject of their inquiry than they would to obtain any other court record.
They would either have to know the person's social security number or state driver's license number.
Here's what both bills say:
SECTION 2. The traffic violations bureaus of the district courts shall not grant any person access to the traffic violation record of any person, in any form, including an electronic traffic violation record available through a website approved by the State of Hawaii, unless the person requesting the information provides the state driver's license number or social security number of the person for whom the traffic violation record is sought.
The effect of that language: It will become very difficult to look up the legal history of a driver, while it will still be easy to look up much more personal court records, such as divorce or civil lawsuits.
Say you wanted to know about the driving record of your daughter's new boyfriend. No such luck. You'll need to know his driver's license number or social security number.
That stands in stark contrast to how the state deals with records in all its other courts.
Court records are available online. That's the case for the state's appellate courts, district courts and circuit courts.
The state should be consistent. It shouldn't start closing the door on court records.
DISCUSSION: What do you think about the idea of making access to traffic-related court records much more difficult? Share your thoughts below.
