Engrossed House Bill 2660 has passed both the House and Senate in the Washington State legislation and is now waiting the governor's signature. The bill increases the fee for a driving record, vehicle certificate of ownership, certain vehicle license plates, and vehicle dealer licenses. The fee for an abstract would increase from $10.00 to $13.00 per record - note this is a compromise as the original bill had the fee set at $15.00. If the bill is signed by the governor (or if not vetoed by March 31, 2012), all fee increases will take place effective October 1, 2012.

Per PRRN Member Judith Smith, the Executive Director of the San Luis Obispo Superior Court - Ms. Susan Matherly - has simply had enough. Ms. Matherly has had it with all the public record search firms hired by employers to check criminal records of local residents that apply for jobs. On March 14th she announced at a local Bar Association luncheon that she was shutting down the public access terminal to background screening firms. And on Monday March 19th she did it. The IT staff removed the public access computer and put it in a locked room to be accessible only by attorneys and their investigators.

To better understand Ms. Matherly's logic, consider the following summarized statements she also made at the March 14th luncheon, as reported by Ms. Smith:

• Public access information was never intended for background screeners. Background screening companies just make people not get hired.
• Employers shouldn't be using background screening companies, but rather should be using the DOJ/LiveScan [the FBI].
• There are penal codes stating that the type of research that background screening researchers are doing is illegal. [But she refused to mention what these laws are.]
• Background screening companies and researchers are not trained to know what they are doing.
• There is no identifying information in the computer to know if a researcher has indentified the correct person. [Note: The terminal does display a full name and the DOB.]

At present according to Judith Smith, Ms Matherly has instructed the Superior Court Clerks to do the following:

• Only attorneys and their investigators now have access to the locked room where the public access computer with access to the public records now resides.
• Clerks are not allowed to provide dockets to anyone except to the defendant or their attorney of record.
• Record searchers may only provide clerks with 10 names a day.
• Clerks may only provide very limited information (for free) if there is only one recent case. Only data provided are the case #, violation and disposition date, the charge and disposition for convictions. If a charge was dismissed the clerk will not inform the requester.  Also, no information is provided on sentencing or parole violations.  However, the researcher can obtain this information for a $15.00 fee.
• If a subject name has more than one case, the clerks will only provide the case numbers. The researchers then must order each file to review for a $15.00 fee per case.

For those interested:

Judith Smith can be reached at Judie@jhsmithconsulting.com.

The presiding judge and Ms. Matherly's supervisor is Judge Barry LaBarbera.

Ms. Matherly can be reached at:

Ms. Susan Matherly

Executive Director, Superior Court

1050 Monterey Street

San Luis Obispo, CA 93408

susan.matherly@slo.courts.ca.gov

805-781-5421