San Jacinto News-Times - Local News
Stories Added - August 2010
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JP court’s desk calendar subject to public inspection
San Jacinto News- Times
POINT BLANK -- A special committee of presiding judges representing fi ve administrative judicial regions has ruled that the desk calendar maintained by the court clerk of Pct. 4 Justice of the Peace Greg Magee is a judicial record and is subject to public inspection. The ruling comes from an appeal fi led with the Offi ce of Court Administration by Coldspring resident Ann Johnson after Judge Magee denied her request for copies of the calendar. “In April she presented me with a Rule 12 request for copies of all of the court dockets for my court from 2002,” Magee said, “and if the dockets could not be released, she wanted a calendar of dates in which I held court under my jurisdiction, along with the location where the hearing or trial was held.” Rule 12 refers to the Texas Rules of Judicial Administration. The purpose of this rule is to provide public access to information in the judiciary consistent with the mandates of the Texas Constitution that the public interests are best served by open courts and by an independent judiciary. “Justice Courts are not subject to the Open Records Act or the Public Information Act,” Magee said. “Requests to view judicial records are made by a Rule 12 request.” According to Rule 12, a judicial record is defi ned as, “a record made or maintained by or for a court or judicial agency in its regular course of business but not pertaining to its adjudicative function, regardless of whether that function relates to a specifi c case. A record of any nature created, produced, or fi led in connection with any matter that is or has been before a court is not a judicial record.” “In 2003 court dockets were ruled to pertain to a court’s adjudicative function and are not judicial records. Based on that ruling, I denied Johnson’s request. Her request then for a calendar of dates and locations was perplexing, in that my court does not maintain what I consider a calendar of court dates. Unlike district and county courts, I do not set fi rm dates for court a year in advance. Those courts do maintain a calendar of court dates. Because I have a low volume of court trials, I may have no trials for a given month or I may have 2 or 3. With civil cases, I try to work with the litigants to obtain a convenient date for all parties. If attorneys are involved, I try to keep in mind their obligations to the district and other courts,” Magee said. “I thought about responding to Johnson’s request as saying I did not maintain a calendar of dates. However, to be fair to her request, I did not respond in that fashion because my clerk did keep a desk calendar and she would place the names of the parties on the date that a case was set, but I did not believe the calendar was a judicial record and I denied her request,” Magee said. “The information kept on my clerk’s calendar is mainly used to keep information that would show the dates that either my clerk or myself will be out of the office or unavailable to schedule court. Like most people’s calendars, personal notations are sometimes made about doctor appointments, days off, vacation schedules, children/school functions, birthdays and from and time to time, we would make notations regarding when other judges will be out of town. It is information needed to know when to schedule court, but certainly not information that should be of public interest,” Magee said. “In my response to the appeal, I informed the special committee it was my belief that the intent of the Texas Constitution and of Rule 12 was to provide public access to information in the judiciary so that public interest could be best served by having open courts. Not every single piece of data recorded in my office is by definition a judicial record.” Explaining, Magee stated, “By the very nature of the many non-judicial statutory duties of a justice of the peace, it could be argued that not all activities in my office are judicial in nature and would fall within the jurisdiction of Rule 12. Making notations on a desk calendar is not an official function of my court clerk, there is no official duty to maintain such a calendar, there is no requirement that she make a notation and the calendar itself certainly has no official value. The calendar is simply a tool that is used by my clerk to know if a certain date is available for court settings.” According to Magee, if the calendar had been determined not to be a judicial record, denying access would not have run afoul with the intent of the Constitution of having open court and public access to information in the judiciary. “This type of calendar does not have the type of information this constitutional mandate intended to be made public,” said Magee. “The public is not denied access to open courts; dockets are made and distributed and I file a monthly report of court activities. My activities are not hidden.” Magee informed the committee if the calendar is deemed to be a judicial record, he believed the calendar should be exempt from disclosure as it contains judicial calendar information that is specifically exempted from disclosure. However, in the Rule 12 decision, the special committee stated that the judicial calendar information is not a blanket exemption. It only exempts records that “reflect a judicial officer’s appointments or engagements that are in the future or that constitute an invasion of personal privacy.” In addition, the decision stated that other Rule 12 exemptions, such as home address and family information may also apply to specific calendar entries. The decision stated the proper response is to redact exempt entries from the record before providing a copy to the requestor. Since the committee granted Ms. Johnson’s appeal and stated she should be provided with a copy that has been redacted of any entries containing items that constitute an invasion of personal privacy or that are otherwise exempt, Magee has sent her a letter advising that the April sheet is available. “Each month these sheets are torn from the calendar and discarded. I kept April’s because I figured she would appeal my decision,” Magee said. “Rule 12 had been confusing for the courts every since it was created. Get a room full of judges and you will get different thoughts as to what is and what is not covered by Rule 12.” In reviewing Rule 12 after Johnson’s request, Judge Magee said he made the decision that a desk calendar will no longer be maintained in his office. “Dockets will continue to be made, distributed and posted so that the public can see when we hold court,” said Magee. “There is still a question as whether the invasion of privacy applies to only me or anyone else listed on the calendar. I certainly don’t want certain types of people to know the birthdays of my clerk’s children, when she will be on vacation, when the constable will be gone, when other judges will be out of town or who in the community has a problem,” Magee said. Magee is the only judge in the county to have received this request. “In 12 years, this is only the second request of a docket; the first being from my last political opponent; and this is my first request for my calendar,” Magee said. “There is no doubt this request is politically motivated. Statements from some of my political opposition indicate a belief that I spend all of my time with my private law practice and I do nothing for my court.” Following rumors that Johnson was seeking public records regarding his private law practice, Magee said he made some requests of his own. “I presented my own request to government offices and found that she has been spending a lot of time and hundreds of dollars gathering information regarding my cases,” Magee said. “She has requ4sted information of all my cases in the courts of both San Jacinto and Polk counties and requested information from the cities of Coldspring, Point Blank and Shepherd,” Magee added, “and I’m sure there will be more requests before the November election. I fully expect some type of tabloid to come out just before the election trying to scandalize my being an attorney and implying that I’m not handling court business because of the number of private cases I’ve handled.” “Most people know that I went to law school after being elected as justice of the peace,” Magee said. “One of my reasons for going was to be able to better serve our community, of which I’ve been serving since before I graduated from Coldspring High School in 1974.” Magee said he has been practicing law since November 2003 and believes he has done a good job of balancing his practice with his duties as justice of the peace. “I was practicing during my last election and the voters had confidence in me that I was performing my duties well. I believe the voters know me and again have confidence that I am performing my duties.” “There are some who want to make this upcoming election into what I call, Washington cutthroat politics,” Magee said. “I believe this election should be about hometown politics, where decisions can have an everyday affect on your life. I’ve said this election is not going to be about the Democratic or Republican parties and it is certainly not going to be about whether I am a practicing attorney. It is going to be about the reputation, character, education and experience of the person who you want to make decisions about your legal situations, your traffic citations and whether you go to jail.” The San Jacinto News-Times was unsuccessful in contacting Johnson by telephone or email for her response to Magee’s political allegations.
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