thank you ma'am please the court dialing cummins on behalf of jason robinson and i would like to reserve five minutes for rebuttal ok so is this court is aware it was more than three years ago that jason robertson first began a study about arrests and racial profiling  california and reviewed the missed meter arrest citations that are filed as criminal complaints in the superior courts in riverside and other california counties but for the last three years he has had no access to these court records at various courts in california because the superior court will not make available to him in what they call book enough records first his testicles sampling for a study and perhaps even more egregiously just talking right there how do we know that they would have made sufficient records available such that they would be you know like i was they all give you we can't give you all ten thousand citations issued for this particular month or this particular period but will come up with some if you tell us how to come up with a statistically relevant sample will provide that you just said that no they weren't going to provide that how do we know that when mr robertson did the study in riverside in this litigation the court called into question whether that was even true whether reviewed the riverside records or not and in response he filed a declaration and he purport hard evidence how he had negotiated with the court how he had agreed to show up on only tuesdays and thursdays you know so that he wouldn't overburden the court and how he reviewed the records  the records in the lobby by batch before returning him to the court and that based on that process it took the court less than five minutes a day to hand him the batch and take another batch back and that evidence is undisputed he then ok he then had the series in santa barbara where for weeks he litigated and the settlement negotiations that he record were actually in the santa barbara case are san bernardino closely stuck because what you're saying is not i don't see it as responsive at you came you just said about five minutes ago that the court was not going to provide a sufficient sample for your client to do the research that he wants and all i asked was how do we know that because basically your client never waited for the response from the court so how why are you able to say as we're trying to figure out how do we know that in fact the court was not going to provide him with access that would have been sufficient for him to complete his study ok well in this case after the stand bernadino experience where he was denied access on august twenty ninth two thousand and twelve he received a phone call from eli stor at the court and she specifically said to him in essence with respect to your july twenty first request to start refuting the records on september ninth don't bother to show up because the records are not going to be available to you unequivocal not going to be available to you on that date on that day we can't basically i can't remember the volume of records but it's a large volume right so what i understood her to say to your client was on that day we are not going to have fifty thousand pieces of paper here for you to look at right that's right but again following a pattern and practice same basically terms that other members of the public get on and by the way that means you can get access to the first seven of these records if you know the name of the arrestee or the case number or the traffic citation number but not otherwise which is again most memorable members of the public who want to review these records will not and by the way you know there's a limit of twenty five records a day and for more than seven records you will have to pay fifteen dollars search on august twenty ninth and additional unequivocal denial on october fifth and then questions about reconsideration what if you said on this topic in the past what is your research really about what is the design of your research which we would submit are unlawful content based restrictions that have no support in the law and in fact a substantial body of large instead i would hope that his response would have my purposes to embarrass or if the facts support it's embarrassing right right he wants to find out if there is a racial disparity in the way these public here and the topic of arrest and racial profiling is in has long been a topic of incredible societal interest so we stand here to day after three years we still have no final answer to whether he will ever get access to the records but we have a series of denials and basically no will access to the records because we can't get access we can't get an answer out of the court in the district clear ha district court has made it clear that we can't sue unless and until we get the court's final answer so absent intervention by this court mr robinson is at a loss to know what more he can do we believe his claims are right today with respect to the hardship i think that's pretty clear you've got constitutional rights on one side access to public judicial records the right to speak on whatever the records show where the are lawful and fair and following a due process in california where the enforcement of those is you know subject to the same requirements and i would submit to your honor's that the record does not need any more development because the rest my case it is before the court the contents of the judicial council want on it are undisputed the fact that their file this court records isn't disputed the court's balancing of whether there's any privacy interests or not is routinely done as a legal matter by courts there's just simply no other i ask you just to go back to something you were talking a second ago so in this october fifth letter that you're referencing you're saying that the statement the very end there were the core executives is the best the court would be able to offer you would be an opportunity an opportunity to inspect the requested citations on the same terms and conditions as are offered to all other court users i think you read into that a whole bunch of limitations on just one of where did that come from i think it says if we allow you access know it just as the best ok it doesn't  one way or the other but the bet even if you're lucky enough that we're going to write any access that says the best we can do is this and then you said well what that means is the following ten restrictions that are completely you know would would make it impossible basically for your client to conduct the study is that i think th court's precedent is very clear that any delay in access to court records constitutes a denial it's you who promote harm and again jason roberts and his father declaration saying he doesn't know of anything more he could do to ever get access to these records he showed up at various courts bernardino in addition i mean at the very least it doesn't it show that the issue is now right away the if the best they're doing is quoted yes basically jason robinson has no ability to compel the court to give him the final answer none we stand here three years from the date we still don't have a final answer and again he doesn't have any  right before interrupted you you were telling us about other courts that your client i guess was negotiated with to get access to similar records is that right yes your honor decision you say a little bit more about how come things have worked so much more smoothly with respect so that he could go through and review the violations that he wanted to review and do a statistical study at some point in time he showed up in c and bernardino and in contra costa and other courts in california and there was a concentrated campaign to not give him access to those records in contra costa he tried to set it up in advance i'll give you ten and a half weeks i'd like to review the records i'd like to show up on september fourth and what is you get after repeated contacts to the court in august finally a phone call back on the twenty ninth and equivocally the records are not going to be available to you  honor and that was worked out of them some fashion yes what happened was that mr robertson contacted the court he exchanged email says the evidence is in the record and basically try to accommodate their scheduling to make it convenient for them they agreed that it be best if he reviewed records on tuesday and thursday which he agreed to do and they agreed to basically give him one batch of twenty five records at a time he agreed not to take them out of order or in any way you know to face them and then he would return the batch to the clerk and get another batch of the records treeview and that was very successfully done as a very peaceful process and again it's undisputed in the record that took about five minutes of the way and i also again this didn't happen in a vacuum mr robertson had sued in san bernardino had asked for access to the records had shown up and they were never granted the same thing was happening in cont and there were other courts in california that it was happening in as well so once again there had been some change in the spirit courts were no longer going to allow him this book access to review these records not based on any  do that sorry i don't think my client said that any and again this certainly wasn't the practice anywhere else and in fact i think he has a letter his two page single spaced letter explaining his study and his purpose also explained how he had done it in other courts  so again i basically do not believe my client ever asked for that kind of bulk access and in fact there's never been an offer from the superior court today to make those records available twenty five at a time batch by batch we're told they're offsite there someplace else there you know and by the way if we ever act to give you access you know you have to agree to certainly you know tell us what your studies about how it's designed what you've said about it in the past may please the court said good volume or it may please the court my name is robert on behalf of the defendant before i get into our argument you need to know that i've said this before because i've had of the arguments here that you have one of the best court clerks i have ever minute and a half with one just go straight to the october fifth letter and boy service scene playing there that the court is saying you're the best you could possibly hope for and we're not even promising that but the best you could hope for is access on the same terms and conditions after all other court users and your opponent has said what that means is the following five things which would basically preclude her client from being able to conduct any meaningful study so what's your response to that response is that the letter would be presumably a matter of public record yes it has not because it is not ok information but it's all extra records so with respect to the sentence that the best you're saying we're not we can't we can't take that as literal that the that is not a binding assertion by the court that no matter what the best you're going to get his acts because the court i don't think so yet to answer your question and then the sense and then what what is the word the best being in the english language means best but you want to it's the context that matters the paragraph before says this is still under review and we need to understand you understand what the issue right but what was under review is whether you're going to get any access at all and then the statement is made in the very last sentence of the letter writer and it's just basically like even if what we were talking about before even if we grant you some access the best you could possibly hope for is the following and i guess i'm still waiting to hear what your response to her claim that what was communicated there were the following five limitations that would make any meaningful study of those records impossible the answer is your honor that the court was first off making sure that mr rober understood that access would not be denied right because the gore to say we understand that we have an obligation to produce records but you know i don't i sort of cut to the chase here some aspect of these records are public records yes the public is intitled to know them whether shows that the court you represent is doing a wonderful job or something less than that correct on the other hand you have seemed to have some legitimate concerns about the security of documents documents information in these documents that might be personal or might be abused by people outside this particular room hitt have either of you consider sitting down with a mediator and having these things resolved out so you can come to  conclusion about access and what kind of access or do you really want a federal court to be telling your client how to run its business your honor we have always been going to sell of this case we have always been what i really want to hear you say yes are those other counties in this lawsuit the answer that's no isn't it than why wouldn't you want to sit down with a mediator and at least resolve this and then you can tell those other counties we were able to resolve it in a mediated way what's wrong with that have you ever sat down with a really good mediator and everybody's happy and your honor that's frankly what the court was trying to do but if i can if i can get back to this point is the one point it hasn't done in three years i'm sorry your honor but hasn't been able to accomplish lawsuit pending your honor no years again it's extra record your honor and i can only say that there have been i think pretty fairly good discussions and several offers you know of the wonderful things about mediation is you don't have to worry about the record yeah you don't have to really respect well i don't want to make all you have to do is come to a reasoned conclusion between the two parties i don't disagree with that ok i don't disagree that at any event to get back to the issue of the pull court was trying to make a point in the last paragraph that it would not be denying records it would be if its view was that public records access they're entitled to i think had discussions continue that had there been a decision i'm not sure that that even would have been where the court landed in terms of the kind of access t you never got there there's there there are so many things that mr robertson didn't answer in the record before the lawsuit was filed that would have affected how the court made its decision you know what if he answered as judge hawk suggested i and looking into this because i basically think you're not conducting your court in a racially neutral matter it's the police officers your  the police officers and i think yes yes fair enough absolutely i think this will prove it and and it will be an a if i'm right i'm going to write an article that will be an embarrassment to all concerned so if he can answer to that you think what what would your court have said oh that's fine and what's their purpose and asking him what his purpose i understand when you look at the laws and how they treat access requests one of the things that all of these laws recognize is that there's a distinction between asking for question a particular case you know give me the record in this case public right of access first minute different when you're talking bulk access because now you're asking for all this information about in this case ten thousand people a month and i'd prefer the court to the case called westbrook first as county of los angeles where the court has a very good discussion of the distinction between those two but keeping in mind now that we're talking about these big big even a dozen judges like me understands that distinction but ok but there are three things that are different number one there's all these personal identifying information including signatures that's a problem i think and frankly some courts have looked at that and haven't had a problem with it this court has number one number two he doesn't want that he that's not what the record shows you did he's not asked for copies of these documents yes he has you that's exactly what he's asked for he has asked for the well look if he did ask for copies as your coins will give you a redacted one one that doesn't have social security information of the individual signature it's a matter that's the problem we never got that far what you use a mediator for in some respects sure i'm not helping my own case here in some respects but you're preaching to the choir but to answer the question on the legal issue one there's personally identifying information that identity thieves love to all of you look at all the legislative history all these acts that talk about public access there's a recognition by the congress and by the california legislature that folks who seek bulk access tend to sell the information off and still three what the legislatures and california legislature has done and what the congress of g s justices recommend is that in these cases if you have the person who's asking for access work through the privacy issues which are part and by the way one of the issues there's who pays for it you know and that's just an issue that we're just not even there yet but then what you say is give me a declaration that says one i this is for research purposes and two i'm not going to sell the information to third parties because that's where the privacy concerns comes coming in but i don't know what happened here because i don't understand what that requires of inquiries about him you would have those same conditions  as to any third party who was requesting information whether if they were requesting ten or ten thousand you would still want to protect the privacy you would still want to protect against selling so those are perfectly reasonable restrictions that you would put on it didn't require all this inquiry back to him it's irrelevant back to him those are right those are conditions you would set in any case i'm not want an example on the attack of the signatures i can't imagine how you would turn that over but i can give you an alternative which is if you if the information you want for your study that you're structuring is to know how many people have been arrested dozens said today by the us and such an officer would suffice if we gave you a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet says you know ticket number citation who gave it and whatever information there is with respect to the race of the individual who was who was of was stop that doesn't require revealing anything it doesn't go into this redaction issue at all and it's an alternative and my point though you see is the process that's where they were working they were trying to work that out they really were and it just stopped because we  letter that says the first amendment requires that i get everything that was how it was if you read the record that's how that's all there is and there was no response to the questions of the court had because the court was trying to figure out how best to respond so to answer the big questions and all even if that  i think you understand the case first did is there any kind of unequivocal to ever know the court is exactly doing the opposite which is recognizing that under some circumstances the information should be made public the question is how understanding that there are huge privacy identity theft issues as that we've described in our papers involved in those there were questions that were addressed to mr roberts sense of the court could evaluate that and come up with a proposal the response back was the first amendment entitles me to rebuttal here and additional argument you have i just want to make clear first and foremost my client did not ask for copies of these records ever and secondly in the vehicle code section forty five hundred the legislature has also made very clear that you cannot keep this material away create a database sell it distribute it do anything with it so my client is well aware of the fact that that is prohibited by law and i would also say identity theft is prohibited by law so he certainly was not going to copy down people signatures and try and use that in response to the question of his motives in the litigation he responded with the declaration under penalty of perjury saying i only want to review these records for law enforcement reasons and for nothing else so in addition to his declaration when his motives were questioned and his two page single spaced requests to the court it's selling out why he wanted to review the records in the purpose of this  study it has been clear and at no time has contra costa superior court ever said to him why don't you come in and review them on the same basis that you didn't riverside how long's this case and in this case it's been pending since that's right your honor so you think mediation can help you get to the point where you're going at once to be where you have the information you want and their concerns are sometimes you know have super some more information and instead of responding in some way you filed a lawsuit now from your standpoint maybe you thought they were stonewalling and you had to raise the stakes but from their standpoint you look like an overly aggressive pre mature kind of  step on your part and it would be natural that that would tick them off so what judge hawkins is suggesting i believe is that mediation would have the great advantage of ignoring all that unfortunate past history having someone who is totally fresh unvarnished by all those wounded feelings on both sides try to work out what would be practical useful and get you essentially what you're entitled to and i don't understand why you're hesitating and again i can only say what my client has said to me course and that's that in his experience he's father declaration  a fact he doesn't think based on his experience in the california courts that he is ever going to get access to these records short of a federal court order and how's that working you know  it's not that's why we're here if you were in this impossible dream to agree to mediation what would be in your view a reasonable time to bring it to a conclusion one way or successful or unsuccessful a reasonable time for the study no no for another words having waited three years already i could see that you would be not eager to enter into a mediation that would itself last two years but a mediation that would last two months  would be something where where's the harm you know again my client is not here i can only report to the court what he has told me if the court orders that then you know then