By: Oded Oren (Scrutinize) and Rachael Fauss (
Transparency is a cornerstone of a robust democratic governance system. It helps build public trust, fosters accountability, and promotes informed citizen participation. When it comes to the transparency of the state judiciary and court administration, there are notable shortcomings due to gaps in current law and practice. Since judicial data is a public good, there is a compelling public interest in making more judicial data publicly available. This report delves specifically into the limited publication of written decisions by criminal court judges.
Key Findings:
Only an estimated 6% of the total written criminal court decisions are published every year.
In New York, criminal court judges effectively decide whether or not to publish their decisions in criminal cases. Of the judges who published at least one decision a year, the average number of published decisions was two to three decisions a year.
The number of judges presiding over criminal cases each year is not made available by the court system, meaning that it is not possible to determine how many judges publish zero decisions each year.
Of the 600 New York criminal court judges who published at least one decision between 2010 and 2022, 20 judges (3%) were responsible for 28% of all published decisions, while 356 judges (59%) published three or fewer decisions.
Public Access to Criminal Court Decisions Boosts Transparency and Judicial Accountability:
Judicial Assessment: Access to decisions is vital for evaluating a judge’s performance and qualifications during reappointment, reelection, or promotion.
Legislative Oversight: Publicly available decisions provide a window for the Legislature to monitor the implementation of criminal law reforms.
Legal Insight: Decisions offer valuable insights for appellate courts and attorneys into legal interpretations and trends, but only if they are available for review.
Recommendations:
New York should pass a law to increase transparency by requiring written decisions by criminal court judges to be publicly available online.
Judges would be able to submit transcripts of oral rulings instead of written decisions.
The new law would mandate the publication of decisions when they resolve a legal issue raised in a written motion or decide a pre-trial hearing.
The new law would also require the Office of Court Administration to make all written criminal court decisions authored in the past 15 years publicly available.
The Office of Court Administration should immediately begin implementing these policies administratively.
Scrutinize and Reinvent Albany, 2023. 28p.