“I don’t understand why it is that the public in Santa Clara County is prevented from accessing these documents.”
Photograph of Drew provided to the CLiP archive. Photograph taken by Luz Donahue.
Excerpt from Drew, a journalist at the Hall of Justice in San Jose in winter 2022
Drew: [Pause]. If I could change the court system, what would I change about it?
Interviewer: Mhm.
Drew: Well, let's just get the obvious one out of the way—
Interviewer: [Laughs]
Drew: About um, you know, that, you know, specifically to do with Santa Clara County courts, because I'm new to dealing with them.
Interviewer: Mhm.
Drew: I mean, it seems crazy to me that the clerk's—like the, the publicly accessible documents are only available until 1 p.m. Like, I have to come from Santa Cruz County. So that means I have to leave before noon and possibly even earlier. And also, I’ve gotta pay four dollars for a parking spot anyways. So it's like, you know, spending five dollars, you get there and then they're closing up. I think it's 1:30, maybe, that they close at. And it's like, for example, like if, if my job is to provide the public's access to the court system … and if I don't wake up by 10 a.m., basically, I'm not—I can't even necessarily gain the information in regards to, um, you know, what someone was charged with or, you know, whether someone was like, rightfully or, you know, like, the court makes mistakes. It's good to be able to check up on, you know, if they made any errors [or…] pull down documents. And um, you can do that, I guess, for civil cases in Santa Clara County Court, although they're going to start charging soon it seems like […] So there's like a lot of things, I guess, that I would say um like there could be like issues with accessing the courts, if you don't have money. Like, I can only go there because I have a car, and I have enough money because I'm doing it for work to like put gas in my car. But like even I end up spending 10 to 15 dollars just to drive over there, you know, and five dollars for the parking meter, you know what I mean?
Interviewer: Right.
Drew: Just to be able to find out what someone pleaded guilty to. Now, I can go through the media people. But the thing is, is like suddenly you're dealing with their level of control again. You know what I mean? It's like they become gatekeepers, um, for the court system. And I don't mind working with PR people at all, um, but, you know, when they're using the exact same court system as, for example, Santa Cruz County is, and with Santa Cruz County, you can access those documents 24 hours a day. I don't understand why it is that the public in Santa Clara County is prevented from accessing these documents. So, when the courts are supposed to be open and they clearly have the functionality already to do it. So, that's just one thing. But I think that the broader issue is, you know, as someone that's sat through a lot of court hearings in different places, including in Canada, including in uh, you know, covering at least uh, you know, some cases in in Los Angeles, you know, whether directly or indirectly. Uh and then in Santa Cruz County and Santa Clara County, um, you do end up seeing cases in which, um, people's economic circumstances, sometimes possibly even their race, become factors in how they can get caught up in the system.
