Legislature passes bill to standardize courthouse security, phone rules

As part of his practice focusing on landlord-tenant law, Richmond attorney David Tisel has appeared in front of many courts in the Richmond area.

For his clients, each court contained a variety of different rules concerning electronic devices and courthouse security — with guidelines often not clear until Tisel and his client were already at the courthouse on the hearing date.

Many of Tisel’s clients have evidence on their smartphones, which poses an issue if they are at a courthouse that bars electronic devices, he pointed out.

“If you’re not a lawyer and don’t know what to ask about and what the policies are, you might be expecting that you can get in evidence on your phone, and then you can’t because of security,” Tisel said. “Part of the problem is that this is just so scattershot, every courthouse will do it differently.”

Tisel later connected with a lobbyist who helped in advancing a bill that passed the General Assembly in March and, as of press time, was awaiting action from Gov. Abigail Spanberger.

Senate Bill 83, patroned by Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, D-Fairfax, aims to standardize courthouse security in Virginia. The bill requires the chief judge of each court to set policies regarding the use and possession of portable electronic devices like smartphones by visitors to the court.

The bill would also allow attorneys who display a valid Virginia State Bar-
issued bar card to skip security screening at courts where courthouse employees or law enforcement officers bypass screening, with attorneys who display an invalid bar card subject to a class 1 misdemeanor.

“This is simply a bill to allow our court system to have a policy that they would create and put out in front,” Salim said before the Senate Courts of Justice Committee on Feb. 2. “The bill will help make access to our courts more fair.”

The final amended bill passed the House of Delegates unanimously on March 4 and passed the Senate March 6 on a 26-14 vote.

On April 11, Gov. Abigail Spanberger made an amendment to the bill, adding a reenactment clause stating that SB 83 “shall not become effective unless reenacted by the 2027 Session of the General Assembly.” The legislature will reconvene on April 22 to consider Spanberger’s amendments and vetoes.

Fairfax Bar Association President Steven Briglia, who also works as a partner at Briglia Hundley in Tysons, said he was happy to see the bill clear the General Assembly.

“It shouldn’t be dramatically different when you go from one courthouse to another,” Briglia said.

Electronic devices

Tisel, a pro bono fellow at Hunton, primarily works in eviction defense work. As such, he appears often in Richmond courts, which, he observed, have “a pretty decently high proportion of litigants that don’t drive” to court.

If those litigants bring electronic devices that aren’t allowed in the courthouse, they are then left to scramble to figure out what to do with their phones.

“If they didn’t drive, that might mean in some cases they are leaving them outside,” Tisel said. “It seemed unfair that people would have to choose whether to keep their phone or be able to go to their hearing rather than risk losing it if it’s shoved in the bushes, which some people would have to do.”

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, who is also a practicing attorney, said he had heard from constituents about the need for a bill to address the disparate security policies.

“I saw a need to standardize practices so that people that go to court have an expectation about what the rules are,” Surovell said.

Surovell noted that the policy is especially important for pro se litigants, who oftentimes carry evidence on their phones, as well as witnesses and crime victims who have information on their phones.

“When [cell]phones first came, judges were unhappy that there were phones going off in the courtroom and creating disruptions, but today phones are much more than that,” Surovell said. “How much different is it than reading a newspaper while you’re waiting for your case to be called?”

Tisel argued that the bill addresses an access-to-justice issue, especially when it comes to clients who are self-represented.

“In housing cases, there’s people who take pictures and videos and voice recordings, and all that stuff could be admissible in their cases,” Tisel said. “That can be outcome determinative in people’s cases.”

Calling SB 83 “absolutely necessary and overdue,” Briglia acknowledged the concerns some sheriffs and chief judges have about filming without permission in court, especially with modern cell phones all being equipped with cameras.

“There’s a provision in the amended code that says just because you can bring your phone in, doesn’t mean you’re allowed to record in court,” Briglia said. “There’s special rules about filming in court, as there should be, and I think the [Fairfax Bar] would support those measures.”

Attorney entry

As of April 8, Surovell said, he’d had 12 court appearances in the past eight days, across many courthouses with a variety of security screenings. And going through security screening with trial materials “can be burdensome,” he said.

“I’m often coming to courthouses with dollies and boxes, and I bring a whole arsenal of notebooks, treatises and lawbooks in with me to court,” Surovell said. “I end up holding up the security line for five minutes getting through the detector because I have to unpack it all, throw it on the X-ray machine and then repack it all.”

As a practitioner in Northern Virginia, Surovell noted that he has different IDs for different courthouses, and he must recall device policies across jurisdictions. “It can be frustrating having to go between different courthouses and having to deal with different security polices,” he added.

Under SB 83, courthouse ID card policies would be standardized to allow attorneys to simply present their bar card to bypass security in jurisdictions that allow courthouse staff and law enforcement officers to skip the check. Some jurisdictions, particularly in more rural areas of Virginia, already have a similar policy, Surovell noted.

After receiving complaints from other members of the bar over security policies, Surovell said he hoped the legislation would help ease the burden, especially in busy jurisdictions like Fairfax.

“Going through Fairfax security is like going through security at the airport. It has that kind of volume,” Surovell said. “That was the motivation.”

The benefits of saving time going through security can also be passed down to clients, Briglia noted, emphasizing that it allows counsel to attend meetings faster.

“Since most attorneys are billing their time, it means if you have to set aside more time to get into the courthouse, ultimately the clients are paying for it,” Briglia said. “Access to justice means keeping your costs down and reasonable and sitting in a line to get into a courthouse for 20 to 30 minutes that you’re just passing on to your client, that’s not right.”

Briglia added that the Fairfax Bar supports the class 1 misdemeanor punishment outlined in SB 83 for presentation of an invalid bar card to bypass security, an extension of longstanding policy that it has always been illegal to impersonate a member of the bar.

“If you look at Senate Bill 83, they’ve made it very clear that displaying a card that you know is invalid is a class 1 misdemeanor, and it’s very specific,” Briglia said.

The issue is one Briglia has felt strongly about, he said, adding that that, while he is sympathetic to the need to secure the courthouse, Virginia’s attorneys also have a need for easier access.

“When we come to the courthouse, we’re officers of the court,” Briglia said. “The courthouse in many ways is our office, and attorneys should be mindful that they’re held to a higher standard and live up to it.

“If you’ve got a Virginia State Bar card, the bar card should mean something — and it does mean something.”

“It seemed unfair that people would have to choose whether to keep their phone or be able to go to their hearing rather than risk losing it if it’s shoved in the bushes, which some people would have to do.” — David Tisel, Hunton