Law suits, criminal prosecutions, and the legal proceedings of all kinds produce mountains of paperwork. And after years of relative neglect, all that paper could appears to now pose a hazard to both court workers and the public.

The potentially dangerous conditions are apparent in the public records room at Honolulu’s 1st Circuit Court on Punchbowl Street. This is where the public has to come to inspect the original, certified legal files produced in civil and criminal court cases. Obviously, in our litigious society, keeping up with the ever-growing amount of paper is difficult but vitally important.

But document storage and retrieval is one of those areas in which the Judiciary appears to be falling further and further behind, most likely because of budget constraints. Despite the fact that certain types of files can now be submitted electronically, with documents filed and available online, the paper records keep stacking up.

Eventually, boxes of older files are supposed to be moved to storage, and then scanned. In the meantime, they fill more and more of the space in the public records room and elsewhere in the court building, as well as in rented spaces off site.

It’s now appears to have gotten to the danger point. If a fire were ever to break out, both employees and the public would be at risk.

Remember back in the 1990s when the Honolulu Fire Department released scathing inspection reports showing that “every Oahu high school was found in violation of minimum state fire-code standards,” according to a February 1992 headline in the Honolulu Advertiser?

HFD inspections at that time found that most Oahu public high schools at the time had “unsatisfactory” fire alarm systems, and had a number of other common dangers, including blocked fire exists, missing or broken fire extinguishers, improper storage of flammable materials, and poorly maintained electrical appliances.

If fire inspectors would pay a serious visit to the public records room at Honolulu’s First Circuit Court on Punchbowl Street, I’m sure they would find much the same thing.

Here are a couple of photos taken in the public records room when I stopped by last month to check out a couple of recent civil lawsuits.

The top photo shows the staff-only area separated from the public area by a counter that runs the length of the room (a bit of it is visible in the foreground. Case files are stored on the tall shelves that fill the room. Older files are stacked in boxes within the rows between shelves.

It has gotten to the point that staff searching for a particular case can’t easily walk up and down the rows. They now have to squeeze past the boxes of older records to get to more recent ones.

The bottom photo shows the area just inside the public entrance to the file room. As you enter or leave the room, you walk past more stacked storage boxes filled with paper files. I didn’t count, but judging from the photo, there are probably close to 300 boxes that fill the corner just inside the entrance. If a fire were to break out there, the only visible public exit would be blocked.

I’ve been told court workers have complained about the situation, but that hasn’t been enough to prod judiciary administrators to make cleaning up this mess a priority.

And I would also guess that the court building, like other older state facilities, relies on extension cords and other makeshift arrangements to make up for the lack of a modern electrical system. Typically, you will find those extension cords running behind, under, and around furniture, equipment, and carpets in order to power coffee cups, computers, desk lamps, and other electrical items. To a fire inspector, I would guess it’s not a pretty sight.

And I seriously doubt the neighbor island courts have it any better.

The Judiciary has made several attempts in the past to address the situation. Back in 2003, the courts launched what they hoped would be a modern data system that would include digital imaging of paper records that would be available to the public.

Today, appellate and criminal cases use an electronic filing system, but the sprawling civil court system still generates those mountains of paper.