TITLE TWO — COMMENCEMENT OF ACTION; SERVICE OF PROCESS, PLEADINGS, MOTIONS AND ORDERS
Rule 5.4. Restricted and Workflow-Owned Matters
The General Channel Is Closed. A restricted matter accepts nothing through the general filing channel. The electronic filing system refuses every filing so transmitted, and no order shall direct that a filing be received in a restricted matter through the general channel.
Confidentiality of Restricted Matters. The existence of a restricted matter, its case record, and its documents are withheld from the public docket, from the court library, from every research and search facility of the court, and from the event feed by which the electronic filing system announces case activity. A person without access to a restricted matter is not told that the matter exists.
Workflow-Owned Matters. Each of the following moves only through the route that owns it, and through no other:
An application for a search warrant or an arrest warrant, and a return of service upon such a warrant — the warrants route, by a law enforcement officer or a state attorney;
A bench warrant — the warrants route, by a judge;
A petition for expungement — the expungement route, by the petitioner;
A charging referral arising from a finding of probable cause — the prosecution route, by a state attorney;
An entry of probable cause — the duty court route, by a law enforcement officer;
An order, a judgment, a ruling, and a decree — the judicial route, by a judge; and
A summons — the clerk’s route, by the clerk.
No Motion Through the General Channel. No motion shall be filed in a workflow-owned matter through the general filing channel. Relief in a workflow-owned matter is sought through the workflow that owns the matter, and in no other manner. A rule, order, or practice purporting to permit any party to file a motion in any case does not extend to a restricted or workflow-owned matter.
Decision of Filings in Warrant Matters. A filing in a warrant matter is decided by a judge in the warrants route and is not subject to clerk review under Rule 5.3.
Expungement Matters Are Public. A petition for expungement, the documents filed in the expungement matter, and its disposition are public record, so that the docket may be audited. Nothing in this rule confers confidentiality upon an expungement matter, and the relief granted in such a matter is governed by the Ridgeway Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Summonses. A summons is issued by the clerk upon a party who is a defendant or a respondent. The clerk shall not issue a summons in a matter that is not active or in a matter that is restricted or workflow-owned; such matters generate their own instruments. A summons may be reissued, and each issuance is recorded.
Confidentiality Attaches by Case Type Only. Confidentiality attaches to a matter by reason of the type of the case and by reason of nothing else. It follows, and is hereby declared, that:
The court cannot seal an individual document in a case that is not of a restricted type. No motion to seal a document shall be filed, and no order sealing a document shall issue.
The court cannot order redaction. No motion to redact shall be filed, and no order requiring the redaction of a filed document shall issue.
No order shall restrict access to a single filing, document, or exhibit in a case that is not of a restricted type, and no order shall confer public access upon a matter of a restricted type.
A matter is not converted from one type to another by order, and confidentiality is neither conferred nor removed by consent, stipulation, or waiver of the parties.
Matters of the Supreme Court. A matter of the Supreme Court is not upon the public docket. It is reachable by the participants in it, by every Justice, and by the staff of that court. This subdivision does not make such a matter a restricted matter for the purposes of Rule 5.4(1).
The Event Feed. The electronic filing system publishes an announcement of case activity to external services, including the service that announces activity in the proceeding communications. Such an announcement is informational only. It is not service, it is not the record, and no period runs from it. Restricted matters are suppressed from the event feed in their entirety.
Attempted Filing in a Restricted Matter. A filing that reaches a restricted matter otherwise than through the workflow that owns it shall be rejected, and the clerk shall so reject it upon discovery. The transmission of such a filing is subject to sanction under Rule 11 and to contempt under Rule 53.