San Diego Superior Court to End Photo Ban on Records After 10-Month Delay
The local court failed to implement Assembly Bill 1524 for ten months, forcing public members to pay 50 cents per page for photocopies instead of taking free photos.
By Javier Sanders ·
San Diego County Superior Court will issue a revised policy by the end of this week to allow the public to photograph court records, ending a ten-month period of non-compliance with state law.
The change comes after the court acknowledged it had been blocking members of the public from taking pictures of documents in the downtown courthouse records room.
Assembly Bill 1524 took effect in January. The legislation permits individuals to capture images of court files without paying the standard copying fee.
Under the previous rules, the court charged 50 cents for each page copied by staff. For large files containing hundreds of pages, the cost for a requester could be substantial.
Court spokesperson Emily Cox said the new policy should be in place by Friday. She explained that the court was focused on other operational priorities when the law went into effect.
Cox noted that the judiciary was in the middle of a complete changeover of its criminal case management system, a project that had been in development for several years.
The discrepancy was identified last week when a reporter requested to view records for several criminal cases. A court employee initially stated that photographing the documents was prohibited.
When asked specifically about Assembly Bill 1524, a supervisor told the reporter that the law did not take effect until 2027.
Ash Kalra, the Democratic assemblymember from San Jose who helped author the bill, contacted the statewide Judicial Council after learning of the incident.
Kalra said the Judicial Council assured his office that it is implementing the measure in good faith.
David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, said the law is designed to benefit both the public and the court system.
Loy argued that high copying fees act as a barrier to transparency. He also pointed out that making copies of every page in a large file can be a drain on court resources for clerks who must handle the manual work.
