Wrangling Wyoming's Case Record Confidentiality Requirements: New Access Rules

• Citation: Vol. 47 No. 1 Pg. 14
• Publication year: 2024
• Pages: 14

Wrangling Wyoming's Case Record Confidentiality Requirements: New Access Rules Vol. 47 No. 1 Pg. 14 Wyoming Bar Journal February 2024

By Ben Burningham

Three years ago, the Court Records Division of the Permanent Rules Advisory Committee undertook a challenge that at times felt like herding cats: consolidating case record confidentiality requirements. The dispersion of case record confidentiality requirements throughout statutes and court rules has long frustrated clerks and filers alike.

Shared frustration is disconcerting, but even more concerning is the inconsistent application of confidentiality requirements bred by the scattered framework. Case record confidentiality provisions carefully balance the public's right to access records with the privacy rights of individuals. Non-adherence to these provisions either denies access rights or violates privacy rights.

Though both outcomes are problematic, privacy rights have historically benefited from the "practical obscurity" of case records.^[1] Paper case records are not readily and widely available; they take some effort to obtain. An interested person must visit the appropriate courthouse, request the physical records from the clerk or wait in line to view them on public access terminals, review the records, and pay to copy or print the relevant documents.

These practical obstacles are disappearing in our digital age. As the judicial branch implements efiling in all state courts and explores remote electronic access to case records, consistent compliance with confidentiality requirements has become more crucial than ever. In response to the shift from paper to electronic case records, the Court Records Division developed a centralized framework for case-record access and protection.

The Wyoming Supreme Court adopted this new framework, eliminating the Rules Governing Access to Court Records and Rules Governing Redactions from Court Records and replacing them with one set of rules—the Wyoming Rules Governing Access to Case Records, effective February 5, 2024.^[2]

The new consolidated rules do not establish new restrictions or protections. Rather, "[t]heir aim is to facilitate easy reference to the confidentiality requirements dispersed throughout statute."^[3] They do this by centralizing existing confidentiality protections and access restrictions.

At the heart of the rules lies an Access Security Matrix. Bringing together existing access restrictions, the Matrix defines...