JIS Data Dissemination Committee

April 27, 2007

MINUTES 
JIS Data Dissemination Committee

Members Present:

Judge Ken Grosse, Chair, Washington State Court of Appeals

Judge Glenna Hall, King County Superior Court

Judge James Heller, Pierce County District Court

Judge Kip Stilz, Thurston County District Court

Siri Woods, Chelan County Superior Court Clerk

Guests:

Grace Huang, Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence

Don Horowitz, Attorney, ATJ

Molly Lawrence, Attorney, Northwest Women’s Law Center

Barb Miner, Clerk, King County Superior Court

Rowland Thompson, Allied Daily Newspapers

AOC Staff:

Tim Bates

John Bell

Jennifer Creighton

Judge Stilz opened the meeting and introductions were made. 

The minutes from the 02/23/07 meeting were approved.

WSHA

Robb Menaul of the Washington State Hospital Association was present.  In response to new legislation that requires all care facilities that take care of vulnerable adults to ensure none of their employees have current active vulnerable adult protective orders in which they are the respondents, the Washington State Hospital Association is requesting that AOC make available a list of such respondents.  Tim Bates, AOC ISD Director, was present and stated that this list of names could be compiled very easily, but he was concerned about the accuracy of such information stating that a number of respondents would have common names.  Judge Stiltz suggested adding birthdates.  Mr. Menaul stated that even when the names were provided WSHA understood that it would require going to the courthouse and verifying the identity of the individual and the accuracy of the information.  Mr. Bates stated that the information would need to be updated on at least a weekly basis, but this could be done automatically.  Siri Woods raised concerns about the confidentiality of the birth date.  Everyone agreed that this information, the names, could be made available to the WSHA, however what form that information should be in was still under consideration.

ACTION ITEM:  John Bell will work with Mr. Bates and Mr. Menaul.  If an agreeable form can be produced, Mr. Bell will circulate to the DD Committee via email for their approval.

King County – Execution Docket

Barb Miner, King County Superior Court Clerk, stated she had received recent sealing orders that also requested that she seal the execution docket.  The AOC prompts will not allow sealing and there is a statute that states that the execution docket should remain public.  It was agreed that the bench has the authority to seal the execution docket.  It was acknowledged that the AOC systems do not currently allow for the ability to seal the execution docket. Converting the name of the defendant to initials on the index is one work-around, however it was noted that this workaround effectively seals the index.  AOC staff had estimated 500 hours of work to do this. 

ACTION ITEMS: AOC will look into the 500 hour estimate and the feasibility of implementing a solution now vs. waiting for the new core case management system.  In the mean time, Ms. Miner and Ms. Woods are to work with the Clerk Association on a work-around to the problem.  

VAWA

Jennifer Creighton, AOC Information Access manager, was present to answer and ask questions regarding the implementation of a possible policy regarding Domestic Violence petitions.  The question is whether is needed to comply with VAWA law.  The Committee agreed that the Supreme Court wants all court records to be available on a one-tiered basis.  In order to comply with the most liberal reading of the VAWA law (that it applies to all domestic violence protection orders) and the Supreme Court’s mandate that accessed be one-tiered, would required that all DV protection orders be confidential.  The question is whether this would promote effective law enforcement.  If not, then we would continue to have the law apply only to foreign protection orders.  Siri Woods and Barb Miner were asked to look into the feasibility of enforcing confidential (to the public) domestic violence protection orders.  The discussion will continue next meeting.

The remaining items were tabled due to time restraints.