TITLE FOUR — SENTENCING
Rule 32. Filing and Service of Papers
Filing and Service in the Manner Provided for Civil Actions. Papers in a criminal proceeding are filed and served in the manner provided for civil actions. Rid. R. Civ. P. 5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, and 5.6 apply to every criminal proceeding, and Rid. R. Civ. P. 6.1 governs fees, except as this rule otherwise provides. Where a provision of this rule and a provision of those rules cannot both be given effect in a criminal proceeding, this rule governs.
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, fees are assessed, service is effected, and the docket is maintained. There is one such system, serving the Superior Court and the Supreme Court alike. Except as Rule 32(11) and Rule 32(12) provide, every filing in every criminal proceeding shall be transmitted through the electronic filing system, and no other means of filing exists.
Service: When Required. Each of the following shall be served upon every party:
Every written motion, other than one that may be heard ex parte;
Every written notice, notice of appearance, withdrawal of appearance, demand, brief or memorandum of law, designation of record, and similar paper;
Every affidavit filed in support of or in opposition to a motion;
Every pleading and paper subsequent to the criminal information or indictment; and
Every order, judgment, ruling, and decree of the court.
Service: How Made. Service of every paper described in Rule 32(3) is effected by the court, through the electronic filing system, upon the clerk’s acceptance of the filing that carries the paper.
Upon acceptance, the electronic filing system gives notice of the filing to every other participant in the case, being each party, each attorney of record, and the judge assigned to the case.
The filer is not served with the filer’s own filing. The filer receives instead a notice of the clerk’s decision, whether that decision is acceptance or rejection. A notice of decision is not service.
A filing that is tendered and never filed, that is filed and never accepted, or that is rejected, serves no person.
No party is required, and no party shall be permitted, to satisfy the requirement of service by any separate transmission of the paper to another participant.
Notice given by the electronic filing system is best-effort. A failure of delivery, or a failure of a participant to receive, open, or read a notice, does not undo the acceptance, does not render the service ineffective, and does not excuse the recipient from any obligation or period arising from the paper served.
Service Upon a Represented Party. Whenever under these rules or by order of court service is required or permitted to be made upon a party represented by an attorney, service is made upon the attorney of record, unless service upon the party is ordered by the court. Service upon the attorney of record is service upon the party.
Consent to Electronic Service. A person consents to service through the electronic filing system by entering an appearance in a case or by being made a party to a case. No further consent is required, and no separate consent shall be demanded of, or recorded for, a defendant who appears without counsel. A defendant who appears without counsel is served in the same manner and to the same effect as a defendant represented by an attorney.
No Certificate of Service; No Receipt. No certificate of service, proof of service, or acknowledgment of receipt shall be required for a paper served under Rule 32(4). The electronic filing system records neither the delivery nor the reading of a notice, and no rule or order shall require a party to produce such a record. This subdivision does not affect the return of a summons or of a warrant under Rule 6(3)(d) or Rule 44(3)(c).
When a Paper Is Filed.
Tendered. A filing is tendered when it is transmitted to the electronic filing system such that a filing record exists before all of the documents comprising the filing have been received. A tendered filing is recorded as Pending. A tendered filing is not filed.
Filed. A paper is filed when the electronic filing system has received every document comprising the filing, at which moment the filing is recorded as Submitted and bears the date and time of that receipt as its filing date. The filing date, once recorded, does not change.
Accepted for Filing. A filing is accepted for filing when the clerk has reviewed it and entered it upon the docket, at which moment it is recorded as Accepted. Acceptance does not alter the filing date.
Timeliness. An act required or permitted to be done by filing within a period is done within that period only if, before the period expires, the filing has attained the status of Submitted or Accepted. An abandoned or incomplete transmission is not a timely filing.
No Custodial Filing. There is no rule by which a paper is deemed filed upon its delivery to a custodian, to a correctional officer, to counsel, or to a judge. A defendant in the custody of the Department of Corrections files through the defendant’s own account or through counsel of record, and no other means of filing exists for such a defendant.
Electronic Signature.
Every filing shall bear an electronic signature, being the name transmitted by the account holder with the filing. The electronic filing system receives no filing that does not bear one.
The electronic signature constitutes the signature of the account holder who transmitted the filing upon every document comprising that filing, and that account holder’s declaration under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of Ridgeway that the contents of the filing are true and correct and that the account holder is authorized to make the filing. A person who willfully subscribes as true any material matter that the person does not believe to be true is subject to prosecution under R.C.C. § 2.10.
The electronic signature satisfies every requirement of these rules that a motion, notice, petition, or other paper be signed, including the requirement of Rule 13(1)(a).
Neither the electronic filing system nor the clerk compares the electronic signature to the name of the account holder, to any bar record, or to any other record. The electronic signature is not a representation that the name transmitted is the legal name of the signer, and no rule, order, or judgment shall treat it as one. The integrity of a filing rests upon the authenticated account that transmitted it and upon nothing else.
There is no filing on behalf of another person. The filer of record is always the authenticated account through which the filing was transmitted. An account holder is responsible for every filing transmitted through that account.
Bates Numbers; Case Numbers. Every filing bears a unique identifier assigned by the electronic filing system in the form BATES-YYYYMMDD-##########, which is per filing and is neither sequential nor gapless. Every reference in a paper, order, or judgment to a prior filing shall identify that filing by its Bates number. Every case bears a case number in the form RSC- for a matter of the Superior Court and RSPC- for a matter of the Supreme Court, which encodes nothing about the order or date of filing.
Restricted Matters; The General Channel Is Closed.
The following matters are restricted, and their existence, case record, and documents are withheld from the public docket, from the court library, from every research facility of the court, and from the feed by which the electronic filing system announces case activity:
Ex parte matters;
Search warrant matters;
Arrest warrant matters; and
Bench warrant matters.
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. A filing that reaches a restricted matter otherwise than through the workflow that owns it shall be rejected.
A filing in a warrant matter is decided by a judge in the warrants route and is not subject to clerk review.
Workflow-Owned Matters. Each of the following moves only through the route that owns it, and through no other:
A bench warrant — the warrants route, by a judge;
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 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.
Expungement Matters Are Public. Unlike a restricted matter, an expungement matter is not confidential. The petition, every document filed in the matter, and the disposition are public record, so that the docket may be audited. Confidentiality does not attach to an expungement matter by any order, consent, stipulation, or waiver. Title Five governs.
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 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 the redaction of a filed document. No motion to redact shall be filed, and no order requiring redaction 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.
Sensitive Information; Duty of the Filer. Because the electronic filing system provides no redaction and no document-level sealing, the duty to protect sensitive information falls upon the filer. A person shall not transmit to the electronic filing system, in any document or in any field of a filing, the material described in Rid. R. Civ. P. 5.6(2), and in a criminal proceeding shall not transmit:
Information identifying a victim otherwise than by username, except as Rule 20 permits or requires;
Information identifying a person known to be a minor otherwise than by username;
The identity of a confidential informant, or material from which that identity may be derived, except upon an order of the court entered after a hearing;
Material drawn from a grand jury proceeding, the secrecy of which 6 R. Stat. § 131.110 requires; or
Material drawn from a restricted matter to which the person has access by reason of office.
Redaction is an act of the filer performed before transmission and is available at no other time and from no other person. The inclusion of such material is a ground for rejection by the clerk, and rejection is the only means by which such material is kept out of the record. After acceptance, the material is in the record, and no motion shall be made and no order shall issue to seal, redact, remove, or restrict it. A protective order entered in a criminal proceeding commands the persons it names, operates upon no document and upon no capability of the electronic filing system, and is enforced by contempt under Rule 43 and under R.C.C. § 1.08.
Clerk Review; Rejection. The clerk shall review every filing that attains the status of Submitted, other than a filing in a warrant matter, and shall accept it for filing or reject it. Rejection is of no effect unless the clerk states a reason for it, which shall not exceed five hundred (500) characters and is recorded with the identity of the clerk and the time of the rejection. Acceptance and rejection operate upon the filing as a unit; there is no partial acceptance. A filing that has been accepted or rejected shall not be decided again, except that a document arriving after acceptance returns the filing to review.
No Amendment; No Withdrawal; Corrected Refiling. A filed document shall not be amended, withdrawn, corrected, supplemented, substituted, or struck from the record. The sole cure for a defective, rejected, or erroneous filing is a corrected refiling, which bears its own filing date and does not relate back through the record. There is no filing date nunc pro tunc. Nothing in this subdivision limits the amendment of a criminal information or indictment under Rule 4, which is a matter of pleading and not of the record.
Non-Public Filings. A filing that is Pending, that failed of transmission, or that has been rejected is not upon the public docket, and neither its existence, its documents, nor the reason stated for its rejection is available to any person who is not a participant in the case or an officer of the court. The public docket comprises those filings that are Submitted or Accepted in matters that are not restricted. A matter of the Supreme Court is not upon the public docket and is reachable by the participants in it, by every Justice, and by the staff of that court.
Form of Documents. The number of documents comprising a filing is not limited. No document shall exceed fifty (50) megabytes, which limit the electronic filing system enforces. Every other requirement of form — the type of file, the caption, the length of a paper, the typeface, and the margins — is validated by no person and no facility at intake, and non-compliance is a ground for rejection by the clerk in the clerk’s judgment and is nothing more. A document produced through the court’s document builder satisfies the requirements of form it implements.
Programmatic Filings. A filing transmitted through the legacy programmatic interface rather than through the authenticated channel by which a person files is not signed within the meaning of Rule 32(9), carries no declaration under penalty of perjury, and asserts its own attribution. The clerk shall reject such a filing unless, before the clerk decides it, a party to the case or an attorney of record has ratified it by a filing that identifies it by its Bates number, adopts it and its documents, and bears the ratifying person’s electronic signature. A programmatic filing in a restricted or workflow-owned matter shall be rejected in every case and is not subject to ratification.
The Proceeding Communications. The proceeding communications of a case are the medium in which the proceedings of the case are conducted, in which testimony is taken, argument is heard, and objections are made and ruled upon. No paper is filed by transmission in the proceeding communications, by direct message, by electronic mail, or by delivery to a judge, and no such transmission is a filing, is service, or is part of the record. Announcements of case activity reaching the proceeding communications from the electronic filing system are informational only.
Papers Served Without Being Filed. Where these rules or an order require that a paper be served without being filed, service is made in the proceeding communications of the case, by delivery to the party or to the attorney of record. The person effecting such service shall preserve evidence of it and shall produce that evidence upon the court’s direction. Service so made is complete upon delivery.
Time. Rule 46 governs the computation of every period. Every date and time in the record is recorded, stated, and computed in Coordinated Universal Time. Time runs continuously; there are no court days, no business days, no holidays, and no filing cutoff hour. The electronic filing system computes no period, maintains no calendar of due dates, issues no reminder, and takes no action upon the expiration of any period. Every period under these rules is self-executing and is enforced only upon the motion of a party or upon the court’s own initiative.
Fees. A fee is assessed by the electronic filing system at the moment the filing record is created and is computed from the filing code. An unpaid fee prevents nothing: it does not prevent the transmission of a filing, its filing, its acceptance, its entry upon the docket, the service effected by its acceptance, or public access to it. An unpaid fee is a debt collectible as the schedule of fees provides, and its non-payment is a matter of collection and not of procedure. A filing made by a judge, a clerk, a state attorney, or an administrator of the court is assessed at zero. Rid. R. Civ. P. 6.1 governs.