Court records ordered saved

STAFF WRITER

The question of whether older misdemeanor court documents will be destroyed ended this week.

Jason Nemes, who was appointed as director of the Administrative Office of the Courts last week, said court records will be kept in a rented warehouse in Frankfort indefinitely. Courts across the state will likely switch to an all-electronic filing system sometime later, he reported.

The AOC's decision came at the recommendation of a Records Retention Review Commission, headed by Court of Appeals Judge Tom Wine. The commission, charged with investigating numerous complaints about AOC officials destroying Jefferson County court documents last year, recommended that the destruction of court records be halted statewide and that misdemeanor court records be kept for 25 years.

In 2005, Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Lambert amended a statewide document retention policy - that previously called for the destruction of misdemeanor court records - to also include the destruction of electronic records in order to free up space and save storage costs.

Commonwealth's Attorney Rick Bartley and County Attorney Keith Hall voiced opposition to destroying the records because the records can be used to show an offender's pattern of misconduct, impeach a person' false testimony, enhance criminal offenses like DUI and drug possession and get accurate employee background checks.

Bartley and Hall are both thankful that AOC officials decided to keep the records.

“I don't know what it would cost for them to do that, but it's the safest decision,” Hall said. “I may be a pack rat, but you never know when we might need them. If our forefathers could keep documents on hard, lamb skin paper, surely we can keep documents on a disk.”

Statewide, more than 1 million cubic feet of documents are stored annually. Storage space at the Pike County Hall of Justice is limited. Some court proceedings and files are handled in a separate building because of the lack of space.

The commission also recommended that the AOC ask the legislature to appropriate funds for document storage costs.