Editor's Note: Keene Sentinel Executive Editor Tom Kearney is a member of a Supreme Court-appointed Task Force on Access to Court Records created last year to examine public access, privacy, and government accountability issues that arise as new technology is implemented that will make court records accessible electronically.

I'm not even sure I should be involved in this project. I'm a newspaper editor. My job is to stay objective about what goes on in our lives, so I can report the developments fairly.

So why am I part of a committee figuring out which court records should be available on the Internet?

A little background: In computer terms, New Hampshire's courts have been stuck in the Dark Ages. Computer systems have been old and primitive. No Internet access, no e-mail to speak of, no database of what the courts have been doing. All the important records are still on paper, in fat envelopes stuffed into file drawers.

So, a judge could hear a case just like the one his colleague right down the hall heard the prior week, and never know it - never have the benefit of the other judge's thoughts and research. Want to find out if the state's 44 district courts issue similar penalties for, say, driving while intoxicated?

Hit the road; you're going to 44 courts to look at paper records.

Now, finally, the court system is upgrading its computers. It has already started phasing in a computerized system for handling cases. In the next couple of years, all the state's district courts - they handle all traffic cases and minor crime - will be connected to a single system, and so will the 11 superior courts, where the serious cases go to trial.

Computerization means many of the court's records could be available on the Internet. For many organizations - insurance companies, newspapers, background-checkers, police departments, anyone with a need to know whether a particular person has been in trouble before - Internet access to court records would be a godsend.

What worries the court system are the people it frequently deals with - stalkers, abusers, child molesters, sexual predators. How can the court system reconcile its long tradition of public records and public proceedings with its fears about 3 a.m. pajama surfers on the Net?

That's how I wound up on this committee. The N.H. Supreme Court formed a 59-member task force - court administrators, judges, lawyers, state legislators, police, private investigators, news reporters, women's and men's rights advocates, professors, and a few regular everyday people - to recommend guidelines on public access to court records in this Internet age.

From those 59 people, a 12-member drafting committee was chosen. I'm on it, along with a state legislator, two professors, several lawyers (both defense and prosecution), court staff members, a state legislator and a couple of normal people. Larry M. Smukler, a Superior Court judge, is in charge of herding these cats.

The issues are not simple.

I believe in public access to the records and doings of government, including the courts. I believe citizens have a right, an obligation, to find out what their public institutions are doing and how they're doing it.

Only then can they decide whether that branch of government is working the way it should, or whether it should be changed.

On the other hand, the Internet raises questions about how public the court's public records should be. Should a violent ex-husband be able to track down a woman in New Hampshire by tapping into court records? Should the names of jurors in a trial be available on the Internet, opening the possibility that someone might try to influence them before a verdict is issued?

Beyond these practical issues, there's a philosophical divide on the committee. State Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare, is my polar opposite on the drafting committee. He strongly advocates privacy rights, and wants to minimize the amount of personal information available in court records, let alone on the Internet. We have a running but respectful argument. We are the two most doctrinaire members of this committee; the others are somewhere between us.

This job won't be done until June. We're meeting every other week in Concord, wrestling with specific questions at every level of court activity.

So far, we've decided to recommend three categories of information: public on the Internet, public but only at the courthouse (jurors' names, for instance), and confidential. Much of the confidential category was decided by the Legislature when it passed laws clamping secrecy on juvenile offenders, adoptions, mental health records and the like. Public at the courthouse means you can't get the information on the Internet, but you can get it by visiting a courthouse.

Last Friday, we worked over the plans for a computerized system for managing court cases. If you use your PC to tap into court information available on the Internet, what will you learn about a case? You will see the names of the accused and the prosecutor, the alleged offense, the names of the lawyers, whether motions have been filed, whether hearings have been scheduled, and the like.

Yet to be addressed is whether, when the court system begins accepting lawsuits and responses in computer form, rather than paper, the allegations and arguments in criminal and civil cases will be posted on the Internet, and whether such things as victims' names and police affidavits and supporting evidence will be available with a mouse click.

I don't know how it's going to come out. I know my preference, but I'm one of 12. I know that, if I feel strongly enough, I can file a minority report at the end of the drafting process.

Whatever we recommend will go first to the task force; those people will decide whether they agree with us, and send their own report along to the Supreme Court, which will make the final decisions.

I am a big fan of New Hampshire's court system. By and large, it is packed with people determined to do the right thing. People who criticize the courts and how they work generally haven't spent much time in a courtroom. They should.

That's why public access would be a good thing for the courts. The more people see how well they work, the more faith they will have in the court system, and the more they will support what it does. That's how things are supposed to work in a democracy: The more the citizens know, the better decisions they can make.

But the issues are tricky, and who knows where the line will be drawn in the end?

I'll keep you posted.

Tom Kearney is executive editor of The Keene Sentinel. This article was published on Jan. 31, 2005. This article is reprinted with permission.

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