"I think it's outrageous, " said state Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, D-Coral Springs, a veteran trial lawyer and partner in a prominent Broward law firm.

"It's against everything we know, " said longtime Miami divorce attorney A.J. Barranco.

Even Broward Chief Judge Dale Ross said he wasn't aware that cases were being secretly docketed.

'SUPERSEALING'

So how did this happen?

At least 18 judges have ordered the extreme secrecy known as "supersealing" since 2001, Broward clerk data show. But four of them - Arthur Birken, Robert Carney, Ronald Rothschild and now- retired Leonard Fleet - said they ordered sensitive information sealed, but never intended that whole cases would disappear.

Other judges either didn't return calls or referred questions to the chief judge.

Ross said clerk staff members may misinterpret court orders to mean they should take cases underground.

But Broward Clerk of Courts Howard Forman replied that it's "totally wrong" to suggest his office misreads judicial orders. He said his staff removes cases from the public docket when judges label them "confidential."

"It's a court order; it's nothing we invent, " Forman said.

Furthermore, Forman said, he doesn't see the harm in making a sealed case confidential.

"If you can't see a file, what good is the [case] number?" Forman asked.

But lawyer Julin said case numbers must be available so sealed cases can be identified and, if necessary, challenged by the public and the press.

"If you don't know a file exists, how can you challenge the propriety of orders sealing records?" Julin said.

PRACTICE ILLUSTRATED

The divorce case filed July 28 by WTVJ-NBC 6 reporter Sugalski against Fox Sports Net sportscaster Craig Minervini helps illustrate how secret docketing happens.

The order from Judge Rothschild, which he provided to The Miami Herald, states: "The entire file . . . shall remain confidential and under seal pending further order of the court."

Rothschild said he acted in response to the parties' requests. Lawyers for Sugalski and Minervini wouldn't comment. The clerk's office construed "confidential" to mean the case should be removed from public view. And it did just that. Rothschild insists that's not what he intended.

"Unless there's a statutory exception, everything should be docketed, " he said.

Still, Rothschild failed to give notice to the public of his move to close the court record, which the law requires. The requirement is widely ignored, and several judges - including Rothschild - say they were not aware of it.

Divorces make up the largest category of hidden cases - 51 of the 107 since 2001, clerk records show. That's still a small percentage of total divorces; about 10,000 were filed in Broward last year alone.

Other kinds of secret cases run the gamut, including paternity, negligence and contract disputes.

The Miami Herald identified other examples:

• The parents of 17 autistic children sued Nova Southeastern University between 2000 and 2002 for negligence, claiming that the school failed to conduct proper background checks on a volunteer who molested their children. A check, they said, would have revealed that the man was a convicted pedophile.
  The judge in that case, Leonard Fleet, says he ordered the consolidated case "closed" to protect the children's identities but did not intend it to be erased from the public docket. Lawyers for the parents and Nova say they didn't know that the cases were hidden.
• A wrongful-death suit was filed by the estate of a Coral Springs man killed in a 2003 US Airways Express plane crash in Charlotte, N.C., which regulators blamed in part on shoddy maintenance. The suit was settled.

CHANGES COMING?

The practice of secret docketing may soon change. Broward judges are now studying the issue, clerk Forman said.

"Some judges feel that they do want to unseal some cases. Some judges don't, " he said. "I told Judge Ross if you want to send out a new administrative order requiring me to expose the docket information, just let me know."

FEW DEFENDERS

Judge Victor Tobin, who refused to comment, set a hearing for Thursday to consider putting the plane-crash lawsuit back on the public docket. Tobin also reopened another case that his judicial assistant says was removed from public view by "mistake." The now-resolved case involved a dispute between two brothers over control of a company.

Whether cases end up hidden by intent or by error, it's hard to find anyone in the legal community who defends the practice. Raleigh, N.C., First Amendment lawyer John Bussian says that sealing dockets goes against the basic principle that courts funded by the public should be open to the public.

"The only way to maintain any oversight of this public trust is to let the public see the records of what goes on there, " Bussian said. "You can't just wipe them away because some court wants to do it."