To Improve Transparency, Missouri Courts Put Records Online

More people face traffic tickets than criminal charges, but until now, only the latter could be looked up online here.

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By Jennifer S. Mann

More people face traffic tickets than criminal charges, but until now, only the latter could be looked up online here.

Next week, however, a new website will be opened that will allow ticket holders to search for their records in more than 30 area municipal courts -- a number that is expected to double as the website, municourt.net, becomes more established.

The site will show case information, including upcoming hearing dates, money owed and any warrants on tickets.

Aside from the convenience of being able to access case information without going to court, it's a huge leap toward transparency for a municipal court system that has for decades operated in secret.

It's the result of a Post-Dispatch investigation and records push.

The newspaper, in reporting on a variety of abuses and favor trading, found that it was nearly impossible to get timely access to records in many of St. Louis County's 80 municipal courts. Sometimes, even viewing a single court file involved days of wrangling and public records requests, and there was no way to track when tickets were dismissed.

The newspaper asked the state judicial records committee to intervene, and the result was a sweeping order that tasked the courts with making cases from the last five years available to the public in an easily accessible index. Court operating rules already required such a database, but very few municipal courts here had them.

"The records committee's order, it was pretty strong," said Timothy Engelmeyer, who holds several municipal court positions, including as judge in Creve Coeur, where officials demonstrated the new website to a reporter on Thursday.

"A lot of the changes you are seeing can be traced back to what the records committee said, which was that we needed to do this immediately."

The new public access portal, set to begin March 3, will be available to any of the 64 municipal courts that contract with the Regional Justice Information Service (REJIS) for their internal computer/case management system.

REJIS is a quasi-public entity that handles information technology for police departments as well as courts.

One service it already offers, for example, is mobile ticketing. Officers can write citations electronically in the field, and that case information is sent automatically to the court. Now, the basics of the ticket will also appear on the new website within an hour of being authorized by the court.

The online case record would be updated any time the court takes action on the ticket. The initial rollout will cover only active cases, or tickets that have been paid or disposed of within the last year. Older tickets will be added later.

The services are being offered as part of the courts' current contracts with REJIS, so there is no additional cost to the public.

REJIS is also exploring ways it can develop the website further to offer other features, such as the ability to pay tickets straight from the site.

For now, the website will be similar to Case.net, which is where the public can access case information for the state courts. The office of state courts administrator runs that site, and although a number of municipal courts statewide also use that service, only six of them are in St. Louis County.

In the push for municipal court reform, St. Louis County has received the most criticism.

One issue that has come to light is the sheer number of outstanding warrants on tickets. Some people didn't even know that they had several outstanding warrants across different jurisdictions, or that their license had been suspended for failing to show up to court. They'd learn of it when they were stopped for a new ticket, arrested and brought to court.

Engelmeyer said this website would go a long way toward solving those types of problems.

"If you're trying to get legal, what an easy way to do it," he said. "This will give people the opportunity to just get on there, see what they've got, and work toward getting their license back."

David Pudlowski, director of client services for REJIS, said it felt appropriate for his organization to be involved in this effort. REJIS was founded in 1974 under a cooperative agreement between St. Louis and St. Louis County.

"We were born because it's so fragmented in the area and the powers that be said, 'It would be great to have some regional (source) of data,'" he said. "The court administrators I have talked to are nothing but excited because of the value this will provide to the public."

(c)2016 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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