More than 300 civil cases filed between 1989 and 2001 in Broward Circuit Court were kept secret from the public, showing that the hiding of select lawsuits was a deep-rooted practice.

Dozens of the confidential divorces and lawsuits involve the powerful and influential, including politicians, judges, lawyers and law enforcement officers.

Those cases come on top of another 107 civil cases that were kept off the public docket between 2001 and 2006, reported by The Miami Herald in April. At the newspaper's request, the Broward clerk's office searched its records and located another 314 cases. All the cases are now on the public docket, under new rules issued this summer by Chief Judge Dale Ross, but their contents remain sealed.

Secret cases are extremely rare - just 421 since the clerk began electronically docketing cases in 1989. Last year alone, there were 44,775 civil and family court cases filed in Broward Circuit Court.

But the fact that many hidden cases involved local leaders disturbed advocates.

"It's depressing, " said Paul K. McMasters, First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum foundation in Arlington, Va. "It's secret justice for some and public justice for everyone else. The problem is secret justice is not really justice."

Among the newly discovered hidden cases:

• Broward County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin's divorce from her first husband, Boca Raton lawyer Jeffrey Wasserman, in the early 1990s, when she was chairwoman of the Broward School Board.
• Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner's divorce from lawyer William Gardiner III, filed six months after Gardiner took office in 1998. It vanished from the public record the next day.
• Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey Levenson's divorce, removed from the public docket in 1998 when he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Fort Lauderdale. Levenson said he asked to seal the case for security reasons, but didn't know it also had been removed from the docket.
  "That's weird, " Levenson said.
  Wasserman-Rubin and Gardiner did not return telephone calls.
• The divorces of several former public officials, such as Broward Commissioner Howard Craft and Fort Lauderdale Mayor Robert Dressler. Craft, whom records indicate was not represented by an attorney, could not be located for comment. Dressler's divorce lawyer, Bruce Little, said he didn't know the ex-mayor's case was off the docket - or that his own divorce was also.

DIVORCES HIDDEN

The Miami Herald previously reported that divorces involving Circuit Judge Thomas M. Lynch IV; County Court Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren; ex-Broward Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant and North Broward Hospital District Chairman Paul Sallarulo were kept confidential. Also hidden were lawsuits against a former presidential speechwriter, the South Broward Hospital District and Holy Cross Hospital.

Sensitive information in cases can legally be sealed under certain circumstances. But no state law authorizes judges to remove cases from the public docket. And federal courts with authority over Florida have declared the practice unconstitutional.

It's unclear why the cases were off the public docket. Broward Clerk of Courts Howard Forman has said it happens only when judges order it. Judge Ross said clerks might have misconstrued judicial orders. He did not return two calls seeking comment.

"The fact that we're finding more and more of these cases is alarming, " said Adria Harper, director of the First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee.