"Government officials should not be able to pull curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest." —(One of several of LBJ's handwritten notes on the Signing Statement accompanying the Freedom of Information Act).
Public Access to Court Records in Colorado is quietly and subtlety becoming more and more restricted. Axiomatically, it seems, a State will seize any opportunity to conduct its business in secrecy (the problem is not limited to Colorado – see, e.g.,
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/yourcourtstheirsecrets/2002845009_seal05m.html ). In Colorado, the latest excuse, under the rubric of 05-01, is the speculative possibility that court records will provide information for identity thieves to capitalize on. Yet, the State Court Administrator's Office concedes that not one known instance of identity theft in Colorado attributable to public access to court records has transpired. Unfortunately, `though both the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post have both addressed the problem of court secrecy in Colorado over the past few years, the public has not taken notice as they did in Washington state.
One local BLOG at
http://www.coloradodivorcemediation.com/blog , posits in a Saturday, March 04, 2006 essay entitled, “Ain't Nobody's Business! Increased Privacy for Colorado Divorce Records ,” that secrecy is appropriate. The BLOG is, of course, operated by attorneys. Indeed, it is reasonable to assume that divorce attorneys would not want their activities subject to public inspection in the context of family law, which is reputed by some to be exempt from the ordinary application of the Rules of Civil Procedure, decorum, civility and the Common Law.
One source for research on this subject is located at:
http://www.knowyourcourts.com/Public_Records/public_records.htm