A new ruling by the state Supreme Court aims to protect the identities of criminal by limiting information the public can access in background searches and court records. Pat Davis with the Bernalillo County district attorney’s office explains researching someone’s criminal history will become difficult, especially if the subject has a common name.

“Businesses who are doing background checks are going to get multiple hits off persons who are not the person applying, but they’re not going to have a way to sort that out,” said Davis.

The new ruling also requires law enforcement and the DA’s office to file court documents in two versions: One with the defendant’s complete information including social security number and date of birth, and a second version without that information for the public. “At a time when we’re already cutting back on jobs and we’ve had an almost 6 percent decrease in our budget in the last 2 years, it means that we already don’t have the people we need to do the job; now we have to do twice the work,” Davis said.

Sarah Welsh, a spokeswoman for the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government says the move has been building for a few years now and that, in general, “the changes are a good thing and that they will protect people.” State Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Daniels concurs.

“We have no reason to be hiding things that are [of] important use to the public, but we do have obligations that have to balance. Protecting privacy (with) balancing the right to protect public access to information: These rules open it up even more,” said Chief Justice Daniels.

The new ruling only applies to courts and doesn’t affect law enforcement agencies. Officials say the public will still be able to access complete information from corrections departments and police reports. Meanwhile, another proposal to set limitations on the public’s access to records is working its way to the state Supreme Court.

That plan calls for all cases that don’t end in convictions to be taken off public databases. Court administrators say the high court will probably set a public hearing before making a decision on that plan.