Month: November 2020

Effective November 30, 2020, eFiling will available for at the Business and Consumer Docket cares and for all cases except for criminal, civil violations, juvenile, protection from abuse, and protection from harassment cases in Bangor courts.

eFiling will be mandatory for attorneys and self-represented parties filing more than six non-emergency cases in a calendar year.

https://www.courts.maine.gov/news/article.html?id=3745102

https://www.courts.maine.gov/news_reference/news/current/pr-efiling-coming-november30.pdf

The Portland Press Herald is taking the court system to task for failing to live up to an agreement to correct an improper practice of sealing court records en masse–rather than undertaking an individualized review of each case prior to sealing them.

“The latest case concerns the state’s Judicial Branch, which for years has been automatically sealing from public view cases in which charges were ultimately dismissed – restrictions that a federal appeals court has ruled unconstitutional.

The courts were notified of the problem in 2015 and, pushed by the Lewiston Sun Journal and other media organizations, promised to rectify it in 2016. But the changes were never made.

A Sun Journal reporter last month realized the cases were still being sealed. A court spokeswoman said that a computer program was inadvertently not updated and has now been fixed.

It’s impossible to know how many requests for these public records have been wrongly rejected in the four years since this problem was first discovered – or to put it another way, how many times a member of the public has been kept from getting the information he or she is legally entitled to.”

See Editorial: Our View: Maine public’s right to know shouldn’t be an afterthought

Portland Press Herald, November 20, 2020

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/11/20/our-view-maine-publics-right-to-know-shouldnt-be-an-afterthought/

“Media organizations led by the Lewiston Sun Journal objected and asserted the public’s right to know what happens in the state’s courtrooms. …

The courts ultimately pledged to reverse that policy in 2016. That change never actually happened, however, a fact realized last month by a Sun Journal reporter.

In response to renewed objections from the Sun Journal and questions from a Portland Press Herald reporter writing a news story, a court spokeswoman said Wednesday the practice would stop.

The computer system has now been reprogrammed to stop the automatic sealing – which occurred 30 days after dismissal – and the courts are rewriting the code to open the cases that were improperly sealed. In the meantime, clerks have been advised that those files should be available to the public. Cases that were sealed by court order will remain so.”

Portland Press Herald: Maine courts have improperly sealed public records for years, after agreeing to end practice

November 18, 2020

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/11/18/maine-courts-sealed-records-for-years-after-agreeing-to-end-practice/

The Maine Judicial Branch postponed its roll-out date last month following a security incident reported by Tyler Technologies, the technology company that provides the Odyssey eCourts platform used by the state courts. Tyler announced that its security issues have been resolved with no impact to customers.

The Maine Judicial Branch announced that Maine eCourts and eFiling for Bangor courts and the statewide Business and Consumer docket (BCD) would be launched on November 16, 2020. Efiling will begin on November 30, 2020.

https://www.courts.maine.gov/news/article.html?id=3745098

https://www.courts.maine.gov/news_reference/news/current/pr-ecourts-new-dates-11-10-20.pdf