By Noah Zahn
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

CHEYENNE — After years of discussions about modernizing Wyoming’s court records system to allow greater accessibility, state lawmakers are once again considering making a change.

Discussions Wednesday during the Joint Judiciary Committee meeting concerned the financial and logistical challenges to potentially providing remote public access to court records, as many states across the country have already done.

While transparency advocates argued that the current system of driving to local courthouses is a relic of the past, court officials warned that electronic access does not mean easy access and pointed to potential financial challenges.

Currently, remote access in the state is largely limited to Supreme Court dockets and fee-based access for the Chancery Court. For everything else, citizens must physically visit a courthouse computer terminal.

Brandi Sorenson, a Converse County resident, told lawmakers that physical access is not enough for victims or families navigating the legal system.

“Your right to know what’s happening in the community shouldn’t be determined by your ability to take half the day off of work to drive to a courthouse,” Sorenson said.

Parker Jackson, a staff attorney with the Goldwater Institute, said that Wyoming is roughly “40 years behind where the federal government is” with its PACER system, which has provided remote access to federal court filings since the late 1980s. Jackson argued that the state should strive for a goal of “every filing online in real time.”

However, Elisa Butler, state court administrator for the Wyoming Judicial Branch, presented challenges this change could create. The Judicial Systems Automation Account, which funds the branch’s enterprise software and 13 technology positions, is projected to hit a deficit by the 2031-32 biennium without legislative intervention.

“What you all see moving out to budget fiscal year ‘31 is that if we don’t receive any relief in that JSA fund, we’ll be starting to hit the red in the next few years,” Butler said.

She noted that a single remote access system could cost anywhere from $250,000 to $600,000 just for the initial build, not including exponential increases in cloud storage costs for mirrored documents.

Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs, questioned why technology fees, which are a dedicated charge applied to court filings to fund the branch’s technological infrastructure, haven’t kept pace with needs.

“I just always assumed that technology fee was supposed to cover this kind of thing. … What would you think you’d have to do to cover these costs to cover that besides asking for a general appropriation?” he asked.

Butler said the current $40 fee is set by the Legislature and would likely need a $15 to $20 increase for short-term sustainability.

Beyond money, judges and clerks expressed deep concern over the nature of remote access. Carbon County District Judge Dawnessa Snyder urged committee members to be “very deliberate,” reminding them that court records involve “real people’s lives … families and children, people who die, their probates, their money.”

The risk of data scraping, where automated bots harvest bulk personal information, was also a recurring theme. Butler said that while 100 people might use a courthouse terminal, a remote portal would face “exponential use” from commercial data miners, potentially crashing the system or exposing sensitive data that was improperly redacted.

Amanda Sanchez, the Clerk of District Court in Fremont County, said it is complicated to transition a 100-year-old paper record system into a digital one.

“We’re taking 100 years of tradition and what we knew and changing it to something that we need to ensure will succeed in the future,” she said.

Wyoming State Archivist Sara Davis added that mandated digitization would require a “heavy lift,” including at least two additional digital archivists to manage the “volatile” nature of electronic records.

Despite the hurdles, committee members signaled a desire to move forward, though they stopped short of drafting a new bill on Wednesday.

Co-Chairman Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper, suggested that legislators visit their local clerk’s offices before the next meeting to actually operate the terminals they are considering replacing.

“I think we want to keep it alive and have further discussion about it in August,” Washut said.

A Legislative Service Office report revealed that other states offer more robust options. 

Missouri treats remote access as equal to in-person courthouse access, allowing free PDF downloads, while Utah is transitioning from a paid subscription model to a legal mandate requiring free, statewide remote access for all public court records beginning in 2027.

To jumpstart that discussion in Wyoming at the next meeting, the committee directed the LSO to include House Bill 93, a previous attempt at opening court records, in the materials for its upcoming meeting in Casper.

The committee’s decision leaves the door open for a potential bill draft in late 2026, provided lawmakers can find a way to fund the digital expansion without compromising the privacy of Wyoming residents.

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