April 30, 2007
1. INTRODUCTION
On June 14, 2005 the Maryland Court of Appeals ordered that information which has historically been available in hard copy at courthouses will also be made available electronically. This decision came over the protests of prosecutors and victims' rights advocates who feared that the heightened availability would further enable victim and witness intimidation. Prosecutors raised concerns about the differences between electronic and traditional access to court records. According to Baltimore City State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy, "[t]here's a marked difference between going to a courthouse and having to interact face to face to get the information and doing it anonymously at a computer terminal.
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