Fayette County taxpayers who want access to public documents detailing neighborhood crimes now need to make their requests in writing and must wait for approval from a district judge.
Fayette County Court Administrator Karen Kuhn said she was only following state policy on public access to criminal records when she recently implemented the directive.
But Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said the practice adopted in Fayette County was “inappropriate.”
On Thursday, Kuhn said she will ask her office's solicitor to review language in the state policy, titled “Public Access Policy of the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania: Official Case Records of the Magisterial District Courts,” that reportedly directs county district magisterial judges' offices to require formal requests for public affidavits.
Kuhn's office had directed the district judges offices to have anyone seeking a criminal complaint to file a written request form with the district judge. The judge was then directed to approve the request before the complaint would be released.
Kuhn was questioned about the policy after a Daily Courier reporter was asked to fill out a request form before given a criminal complaint.
Melewsky said a section in the policy explains that forms may be required if the request is either “complex or voluminous” in nature.
The policy reads: “Most requests received by the courts are very straightforward and for a small number of records. Therefore, artificial administrative barriers should not be erected to inhibit the courts from fulfilling these requests in an efficient manner.”
“Your request for one affidavit should not require a request form or approval by the MDJ,” Melewsky wrote in an email.
“AOPC [Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts] created a policy for us to follow,” Kuhn said, adding that the policy was not previously viewed by a county solicitor before it was implemented.
Fayette County President Judge John Wagner directed all questions to Kuhn.
Amy Mears DeMatt, district court administrator for Westmoreland County, and Brad Cober, district court administrator for Somerset County, said they are not requiring the public to file formal requests with their district judges for criminal records.
Cober said his office did implement the 25-cent per page limit, which was noted in the state policy. Previously, Somerset district judges were charging 50 cents per page.
Cober said he looked over the policy and was aware of the language of forms required for a “complex or voluminous” request. “I don't know how you would decide that,” he said.
“The comment to section 3.00 (of the policy) clearly explains that most requests are straightforward, and administrative barriers, such as a request form, would be inappropriate,” Melewsky said.
This isn't the first time Fayette County was the subject of a questionable public-access issue.
County prothonotary Nina Frankhouser had sealed public access to protection-from-abuse orders without judges' orders.
After an investigation by the Tribune-Review, public access to protection-from-abuse orders was restored because only judges can seal abuse orders and for anyone else to seal them would be considered unconstitutional.
Staff writers Karl Polacek and Liz Zemba contributed to this report.
