Rule 2.1. Electronic Filing; Definitions Relating to Filing and Service

Application. Rule 32 provides that papers in criminal proceedings are filed and served in the manner provided for civil actions. Except as this rule or Rule 32 otherwise provides, Rid. R. Civ. P. 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, and 5.6 govern filing and service in criminal proceedings, and the terms defined in this rule have the same meaning as in those rules.

The Electronic Filing System. “Electronic filing system” means the court’s electronic case management system, operated at the court’s portal, through which cases are opened, documents are filed, the docket is maintained, and participants are served. A criminal matter is identified by the case number assigned by the system upon opening, and by the Bates number assigned to each filing in the form BATES-YYYYMMDD-##########. A case number encodes nothing about the order in which matters are filed, and no rule, order, or computation of time shall be keyed to it.

Tendered; Filed; Accepted for Filing.

Electronic Signature. “Electronic signature” means the name transmitted by an account holder with a filing. It constitutes that account holder’s signature upon every document in the filing and that account holder’s declaration, under the penalties of perjury, that the contents are true and correct and that the account holder is authorized to submit the filing. The electronic signature is not verified against the account name and is not proof of identity; the authenticated account through which the filing was transmitted is the record of who filed.

Immutability; Corrected Refiling. A document received by the electronic filing system cannot be altered, replaced, or withdrawn, and a filing cannot be partially accepted or partially rejected. The cure for a defective or erroneous filing is a corrected refiling, which is a new filing bearing its own later filing date and its own Bates number. A corrected refiling does not relate back. Nothing in this subdivision restricts the amendment of an accusatory instrument as a matter of pleading under Rule 4(9), which is accomplished by filing an amended instrument that supersedes the earlier one.

Service. Electronic service is effected by the electronic filing system, upon the clerk’s acceptance of a filing, upon every other participant in the case, including each party, each attorney of record, and the assigned judge. No certificate of service, proof of transmission, or read receipt is required or recognized, and no participant is required to transmit a filed paper separately. Appearance in a criminal proceeding, whether by counsel or by a defendant appearing without counsel, constitutes consent to electronic service; no separate consent is required or recorded. A filing that is never accepted is never served.

Workflow-Owned and Restricted Matters. The general filing channel of the electronic filing system is closed to arrest warrant, search warrant, bench warrant, and ex parte matters, which are confidential by case type and move only through the warrants workflow; to charging referrals, which move through the prosecution workflow as provided by Rule 3.2; to probable cause entries, which move through the duty court workflow as provided by Rule 3.1; and to expungement petitions, which move through the expungement portal as provided by Title Five. Orders, judgments, and rulings are entered by the court through the judicial routes. No party may file a motion or other paper in a workflow-owned matter through the general filing channel, and warrant matters are not subject to clerk review.

The Record; Public Access. The public docket comprises those filings that have been filed or accepted for filing in matters that are not sealed matters. A filing that remains tendered, and a filing that has been rejected, are not public, and the reason for a rejection is disclosed only to the filer and to court staff. A sealed matter is a case of a type designated confidential, whose existence and documents are withheld from the public docket. The electronic filing system provides no means of sealing an individual document within a case that is not a sealed matter, and no means of redacting a document once received. A party who must protect sensitive material shall do so by omitting it from the filing, and the court shall protect it by an order binding the persons before it, enforceable as a contempt under Rule 43.

Form. No document exceeding fifty (50) megabytes may be received. The electronic filing system imposes no limit on the number of documents in a filing and validates no other matter of form. Every other requirement of form prescribed by these rules is a ground upon which the clerk may reject a filing in the clerk’s judgment, and is nothing more. A document composed through the court’s document builder satisfies the requirements of form prescribed by these rules for documents of its kind.

Programmatic Filings. A filing transmitted through a programmatic channel that does not authenticate the account of the filer is unsigned within the meaning of subdivision (4) of this rule. The clerk shall reject such a filing unless a party or an attorney of record ratifies it by a filing transmitted through an authenticated account.

Time. All times recorded by the electronic filing system are stated in Coordinated Universal Time. Time runs continuously from the recorded event. There are no court days, no filing cutoff hour, and no holidays. The electronic filing system computes no period and enforces no deadline; every period prescribed by these rules is self-executing and is enforced only upon motion, as provided by Rule 46.