The State Judiciary is in the midst of a major transition from paper documents to digital files.

The transformation has been done in phases, with Circuit Court Criminal and Family Court (Adult) Criminal cases, along with cases before the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals and Hawaii Supreme Court, making the move earlier.

Then in October 2019, District Court civil cases went online, followed by Circuit Court civil cases, which joined the digital domain on October 28.

You can access the eCourt Kokua system through a link at the top left of the Hawai State Judiciary’s main web page.

While all Circuit Court civil cases from the older Ho`ohiki system will be migrated to the online case management system, only new documents filed after that date will be available for online purchase and viewing. And you will still be able to view case dockets of older cases, even though those files won’t be available to view online.

As a document-based reporter, this is huge. Really. Put a stack of documents in front of me and I am usually able to tease out the story or stories they contain. If someone comes to me and tells me something they think should be the subject of news reporting, I’ll immediately ask them where documents might be found to confirm their tale.

And courts produce prodigious amounts of information to be gleaned from various kinds of court cases. Up until now, most of those court records have been stored in boxes in various courthouses, and after a few years, scheduled for microfilming. Reading through the records of a complex court case required determining which court would have the records, then going there in person, often flying to another island, then waiting awkwardly while the files were located and brought to you, and then sitting down and going through a few file folders at a time. Not always convenient, always time consuming.

So for me, the availability of court records online from anywhere is a huge event! It significantly changes the work flow for a documents-based reporter.

Before too long, the Judiciary’s eCourt Kokua system will be the gateway for access to traffic cases; District Court, Circuit Court, and Family Court criminal (adults); District Court and Circuit Court civil; appellate case information, along with Land Court and Tax Court cases. And federal court files have been online for a while through their PACER system.

The online system works very well. Documents can be purchased individually, but attorneys and other heavy users, such as reporters, will want a subscription. I think it’s now $500 per year for unlimited document downloads, and worth every penny.

The Judiciary has instructions for registering as a document subscriber, and for purchasing and using a subscription to view or download court documents.

The Judiciary made at least one serious attempt to scan paper filings and make them available online, but that soon collapsed and we were back to piles of paper. This time, they’ve gotten it right. Applause!

It’s akin to the Campaign Spending Commission’s migration from paper to online data. Back in the mid-1980s, when I started digging into campaign records, the source of all information were the reports filed by campaigns, political action committees, and both corporations and unions that took part in the political process. The Campaign Spending Commission in those years was in the basement of the state capitol. I spent endless hours there, reading through printed reports, taking notes and trying to discern patterns.

Now those are all online. If you have a computer and appropriate database software, you can download the raw data, in most cases going back to 2006. Alternatively, you can easily search for a candidate or political committee’s individual disclosure reports and browse at your leisure. Unlike the court records, these files can be viewed and data downloaded for free. Thank you, Campaign Spending Commission!