PROVIDENCE –– Applications to be a judge in Rhode Island are piling up. Wedged into a corner of a third-floor state office are the brown folders containing at least five years’ worth of them, resembling a homework-stuffed high school locker.

The files hold resumés, financial and other disclosures, and letters of support from influential people. And more are coming. Seven vacancies, from Family Court to Supreme Court chief justice, face the commission that recommends finalists to Governor Carcieri.

“I really have some concerns about these records being kept here,” said D. Faye Sanders, a member of the Judicial Nominating Commission, at a recent meeting of the panel. “If someone were to break in,” she added, if “you look at all the privacy laws, this is an issue.”

But talk of tidying the JNC office turned to sweeping away some files through a records retention/destruction policy. It would be the nine-member panel’s first since its 1994 inception.

Don’t count on a review of what is and isn’t a public record in the files. Three state departments that sign off on agencies’ records retention/destruction policies are not required to make that determination.

“Records retention schedules do not designate records as ‘public’ or ‘private,’ ” said Chris Barnett, spokesman for the secretary of state.

Complaints and requests under the state Open Records Law trigger the attorney general’s office to determine what’s public or confidential. The office wears a different hat when reviewing record-retention policies.

“Our only consideration is a legal one,” said Michael J. Healey, the attorney general’s spokesman. He added: “We are wearing our defense attorneys’ eyeglasses. We are strictly focusing on whether destroying those documents would put the State of Rhode Island in a bad position if it ended up being sued on any issue.”

In August, the attorney general issued an advisory opinion that letters supporting finalists for one state judgeship are not secret under a blanket policy. The opinion, which the JNC sought after The Providence Journal requested access, led to the release of the letters and a Journal article about the glowing endorsements of one or another of the seven commission-recommended finalists to succeed retired Superior Court Judge Vincent Ragosta. The JNC may withhold only letters or parts of them that have “personal and medical information.”

The brown-folder files are not public because they have “a lot of personal and financial information,” said Stephen J. Carlotti, the nominating commission chairman, in an interview. They include questionnaires concerning, among other things, income sources and tax history, debts owed to creditors, criminal record, civil suits, and “any information tending to reflect adversely on your personal or professional background or qualifications, or which you think might be so interpreted by others.”

But the files also include the kinds of supporting letters that the attorney general’s office advised –– specific to finalists for Ragosta’s seat –– could not be deemed confidential.

In theory, advocates, journalists or someone else could request access. The JNC then could decide whether to seek advisory opinions.

Carlotti said the records retention policy would not apply to finalists for judgeships, as the governor can appoint from finalist lists up to five years old, but to other applicants. Carlotti suggested at the commission’s meeting last month possibly disposing of applicable records after one year; other commissioners suggested a longer time. The panel has turned to a key player to determine how long the records will live: the state archivist.

State agencies cannot dispose of documents without a “records-control schedule,” a time limit for keeping them.

Schedules need approval from the state archivist at the State Archives and Public Records Administration –– under Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis’ department –– and the departments of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch and Auditor General Ernest Almonte.

The archivist considers the records’ “historic, legal, administrative and financial value,” Barnett said by e-mail, such as, for example, the possible financial loss of prematurely destroying a mortgage or bond document.

Before being destroyed, some documents are moved to the state records center on Harris Avenue in Providence run by a private company under state contract. Records that may not be destroyed go to the state archives on Westminster Street in Providence, usually those of “permanent historical or legal value.”

Barnett said there are no JNC records at the archives.

Documents stored at the records center are destroyed there. If an agency keeps custody of the documents, it can have them taken to the records center for destruction.

In the meantime, how many more applications find a home in the third-floor office at One Capitol Hill is anyone’s guess. Besides pursuing a records policy, Carlotti planned to inquire about more space.

mmckinne@projo.com