Wayne County deputy clerk knows where they went but won’t say

[COMMENTARY] Imagine the most populous county in Michigan with nearly 2 million people, more than 768,000 households and nearly 35,000 businesses located on 2,000 square miles.

Now imagine that county closing its court files to the public.

I’m talking about Wayne County, including Detroit and suburbs.

Want to check a lawsuit pending or past in Wayne County Circuit Court?

Forget it.

That’s what I was told Friday, July 25, when I drove 30 miles from Plymouth to Detroit expecting to sit down for an hour or two or three to study a file that might have helped me with a story I want to write.

Continued – I used to cover Wayne County Circuit Court when I was a reporter with The Detroit Free Press. That was in the early 1990s. So I knew where to go — a dingy, cramped corner room in the basement of the Coleman A. Young Building which houses Detroit city and Wayne County government offices.

I walked down the stairs, passed the barbershop, turned left and noticed the file room door was closed. Odd. It was also locked, too. On the door, someone had taped a crudely hand-lettered sign that said, “This room closed until further notice.”

I assumed the impossible had happened — that some efficiency expert had descended on Wayne County government and recommended consolidating records on the second floor.

But on the second floor, from behind the counter where lawyers file their lawsuits, a deputy clerk told me the files are off limits. There was a lightning strike June 27 that started a fire in a transformer and forced the evacuation of the files.

I was told that if I wanted more information, I should talk to the woman in the brown dress behind the counter. I walked over to a spot by the counter opposite where the woman in the brown dress was talking to someone on the phone. I could hear her side of the conversation. Somebody on the other end of the line was asking her the same questions I wanted to ask.

Here are the answers the caller got from the deputy clerk:

“The file room is closed until September … Only divorce judgments are available … I don’t know when they’re going to be returned … They’re out of the building … All of the files were taken out … I know where they went, but I’m not gonna tell you … I’m not gonna keep talkin’ to your stupid ass.”

After “stupid ass,” the clerk hung up.

Well, I felt great — I had the answers to all my questions without being called a “stupid ass.” Now I knew better than to ask where the files are being stored. I didn’t want my stupid ass to be kicked out of the building.

Have you heard anything quite this absurd? All the court files except divorce judgments are housed somewhere off campus. Well, why not set up a reading room so people can go and read the files? What’s so hard about that?

Hiding the records violates a pledge by the Michigan Supreme Court to make sure the public has access. Here’s what Section 8 of the court rules says about access to court files:

A. Right of Public Inspection
“Generally, unless access to a file is restricted by statute, court rule, or an order according to MCR 8.119(F), any person may inspect pleadings and other papers in a court clerk’s office and may obtain copies as provided by MCR 8.119(E)(2) and (3). A court, by administrative order, may make reasonable regulations necessary to protect its public records and prevent excessive and unreasonable interference with the discharge of its functions.”

I wonder how Wayne County’s legal system can work if people can’t see the basic documents that underlie every civil action at law.

Does that make me a “stupid ass”?

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com.