Maryland Blocks Online Access to Victim Identification

The Maryland Court of Appeals has decided that most identifying information about victims and witnesses, including their names, will not be made available online in certain court cases.

The rule adopted by the court Monday represents a compromise of sorts. It addresses the concerns of victim advocates and prosecutors who feared that easy access to personal information on the Internet would make victims and witnesses vulnerable to intimidation and embarrassment.

And the rule appears to satisfy journalists who have been pushing for years for greater online access to court information.

"It's a very good result to a very difficult problem," Russell P. Butler, executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims' Resource Center Inc., told The Daily Record in Baltimore.

The courts have been struggling with the issue for years as it moves toward making an increasing amount of court records accessible online. Lawmakers and the Ehrlich administration had introduced bills this year that would have amended the Public Information Act to block remote access to victim and witness information.

The court forestalled such legislation by amending the Maryland Rules, rather than the state code, Judge Alan M. Wilner said.