Proposal would reduce online court records and add fees

Talk about it

Wisconsin’s online court records would be reduced, and most people would have to pay to get what’s left under a bill that had a public hearing Thursday.

The Assembly’s Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony on a proposal to remove current court cases from the popular Web site – plus those in which people were found not guilty or had their charges dropped.

The bill’s author, Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, has long said that people are wrongly accused of crimes and kept from getting jobs because court information is too easy to get online.

But Portage Daily Register publisher George Althoff told the panel that people want the full story about their court system and not just the endings.

Also, Amy Bliss of the Wisconsin Housing Alliance says landlords would not be able to fully evaluate prospective tenants.

All current information would still be available at courthouses. T

hree million pages are viewed each weekday on the state court Web site and Schneider’s bill would make users register to see what’s not deleted.

Court officials, attorneys, law enforcement and journalists would still get the service free. Everybody else would have to pay $10 a year.

If a user later denies a job or housing to someone with a court record, that person would have to be notified or the site users could be fined $1,000.

State courts director John Voelker said it would be expensive and tedious to record who gets free access and who pays.

Tags: online court records, wisconsin