Branch v. Iowa Dist. Court For Linn County
| Decision Date | 15 July 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 10–0163.,10–0163. |
| Citation | 800 N.W.2d 569,39 Media L. Rep. 2228 |
| Parties | JUDICIAL BRANCH and STATE COURT ADMINISTRATOR, Plaintiffs,v.IOWA DISTRICT COURT FOR LINN COUNTY, Defendant. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Pamela D. Griebel, Assistant Attorney General, for plaintiffs.Raphael M. Scheetz, Cedar Rapids, and D. Lew Eells of Eells & Tronvold, P.L.C., Cedar Rapids, for defendant.MANSFIELD, Justice.
It not uncommonly happens, that there are two statutes existing at one time, clashing in whole or in part with each other, and neither of them containing any repealing clause or expression. In such a case, it is the province of the courts to liquidate and fix their meaning and operation.The Federalist No. 78 (Alexander Hamilton).
In this proceeding, we are asked to determine whether either Iowa Code section 692.17 (Supp.2009) 1 or the Iowa Constitution requires the Iowa Judicial Branch to remove from its statewide computerized docket system all information regarding any criminal cases that have been resolved in favor of the defendant. Although the matter is not entirely free from doubt, because there appear to be conflicting statutory provisions, we conclude that section 692.17 does not require removal of this information. We also hold the Iowa Constitution has not been violated. Therefore, we sustain the requested writ of certiorari.
In February 2009, J.W.2 was arrested and charged with operating while intoxicated, first offense, along with three accompanying traffic offenses. After J.W. prevailed on a motion to suppress evidence, the State moved to dismiss the four criminal charges. On July 20, the district court granted the motion and dismissed the charges with costs assessed to the State.
On November 18, J.W. filed a motion to exclude and expunge any information pertaining to the four dismissed criminal charges pursuant to Iowa Code section 692.17, which provides:
1. Criminal history data in a computer data storage system shall not include arrest or disposition data or custody or adjudication data after the person has been acquitted or the charges dismissed....
2. For the purposes of this section, “ criminal history data ” includes the following:
a. In the case of an adult, information maintained by any criminal justice agency if the information otherwise meets the definition of criminal history data in section 692.1, except that source documents shall be retained.
J.W. specifically requested that the information be removed from the Iowa Court Information System (ICIS), including the website Iowa Courts Online, and the computer data storage systems for the Linn County Sheriff, the Cedar Rapids Police, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
On December 28, the district court granted J.W.'s request to expunge the four dismissed criminal charges from the computer data storage systems for the Department of Public Safety and its Division of Criminal Investigation, the Linn County Sheriff's Office, the Linn County Attorney's Office, and the Cedar Rapids Police Department.3 The court denied the request as to the FBI. The court then went on to find that the “computer data storage systems” for the state judicial branch included the electronic docket entries on ICIS and the website Iowa Courts Online and ordered information relating to the four dismissed criminal charges to be removed from those repositories.
J.W. did not ask that any action be taken with respect to the hard copy records of his dismissed criminal case maintained by the Linn County District Court.
On January 19, 2010, the Iowa Attorney General, appearing on behalf of the Iowa Judicial Branch and the Iowa State Court Administrator, filed a petition to vacate the order, for a new hearing, and for a stay. The attorney general argued the computerized information pertaining to J.W.'s charges kept by the state judicial branch consisted of court docket entries that met the definition of “public records” under Iowa Code section 692.18(1). That section provides:
Nothing in this chapter shall prohibit the public from examining and copying the public records of any public body or agency as authorized by chapter 22. 4
Id. § 692.18(1). The attorney general also argued that the judicial branch's computerized docket was a “source document” whose retention was required by section 692.17(2)( a).5
J.W. opposed the attorney general's petition. He argued that section 692.17 required removal of the information from the state judiciary's computer systems, and even if it did not, the Equal Protection Clause of Article I section 6 of the Iowa Constitution compelled the same result. In support of his constitutional argument, J.W. maintained that individuals whose criminal cases had terminated in their favor should receive at least the same degree of record expungement as persons who had been convicted and received deferred judgments. The district court denied the attorney general's requests on January 21.
On January 25, the attorney general petitioned for a writ of certiorari and requested a stay. Our court denied the requested stay, but granted the petition for writ of certiorari.
This case presents two questions: (1) Does Iowa Code section 692.17 require the removal of acquitted or dismissed criminal charges from the court docket entries on ICIS and the website Iowa Courts Online? (2) If the court docket entries are not removed from ICIS and the website Iowa Courts Online, is the Equal Protection Clause of the Iowa Constitution violated because defendants who plead guilty and are granted deferred judgments under section 907.3 may have their records expunged under section 907.9, but defendants who are acquitted or have their charges dismissed continue to have their records open to the public?
In a certiorari case, our review is for the correction of errors at law. Johnson v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 756 N.W.2d 845, 847 (Iowa 2008). We may examine only the jurisdiction of the district court and the legality of its actions. Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.1401; Barnhill v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 765 N.W.2d 267, 272 (Iowa 2009). An illegality exists when the district court's factual findings are not supported by substantial evidence or when the district court has not properly applied the law. State v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 750 N.W.2d 531, 534 (Iowa 2008).
This case requires us to reconcile the following statutory provisions: (1) Iowa Code section 692.17(1), which provides that “[c]riminal history data in a computer data storage system shall not include ... disposition data ... after the person has been acquitted or the charges dismissed”; (2) section 692.17(2)( a), which requires “source documents [to] be retained” for cases involving adults; (3) section 692.18(1), which provides that “[n]othing in this chapter shall prohibit the public from examining and copying the public records of any public body or agency as authorized by chapter 22”; (4) section 22.7(9), which provides that “criminal history data shall be public records”; and, finally, (5) section 602.8104, which requires clerks of court to keep a “record book which contains the entries of the proceedings of the court and which has an index referring to each proceeding in each cause....”
Our task appears on its face to be somewhat difficult, involving more than just the harmonization of two conflicting statutes as described by Hamilton in The Federalist No. 78. Instead, we have one law (section 692.17(1)) that requires disposition data to be removed from computer data storage systems when the defendant has been acquitted or had charges dismissed, another law (section 692.17(2)( a)) that requires “source documents” to be kept, another law (section 692.18(1)) that requires public access to public records, including criminal history data (section 22.7), and still another law (section 602.8104) requiring dockets to be maintained.
Before we try to reconcile these enactments, we will discuss their background and purposes in more detail.
A. Chapter 692. In the 1960's, the FBI decided to create a computer system that would centralize crime information from every state and provide that information to law enforcement throughout the nation. The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) resulted and was launched in January 1967. See Fed. Bureau of Investigation: National Crime Information Center, History and Milestones, www. fbi. gov/ about- us/ cjis/ ncic/ ncic_ history (last visited July 15, 2011).
In response to the formation of NCIC, the General Assembly enacted the Criminal History Data Act in 1973. See 1973 Iowa Acts ch. 294 (). The purpose of the Act was twofold: (1) “to control the dissemination of all informational data centrally collected by the Department [of Public Safety]”; and (2) “to establish standards for the use of the crime computer system by all agencies with access to that system.” Note, The Dissemination of Arrest Records and the Iowa TRACIS Bill, 59 Iowa L.Rev. 1162, 1172 (June 1974) [hereinafter Note].
The law defined three general types of informational data: criminal history data, intelligence data, and surveillance data. See Iowa Code § 692.1(5) (defining “criminal history data”), 692.1(14) (defining “intelligence data”), and 692.1(16) (defining “surveillance data”). “Criminal history data” consist of information that will largely mirror court filings, and include “[a]rrest data[, c]onviction data[, d]isposition data[, c]orrectional data [, a]djudication data[, and c]ustody data.” Id. § 692.1(5)( a)–( f) (2009).
In the wake of this legislation, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) established a statewide system known as the Iowa on-line warrants and articles (IOWA) criminal justice information system. See id. § 692.14; Iowa Admin. Code r....
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