About & contact

Mission

1A Docket is built on two convictions: that transparency is the first and best check on the abuse of power, and that First Amendment protection should not depend on whether a person can afford a lawyer.

We publish for the people who need this material and rarely find it in one place. Attorneys and judges meeting these statutes for the first time. Reporters covering them. Voters and candidates on the receiving end. Records officers trying to apply them correctly. Legislators asking whether the laws they passed are working the way they intended.

Vision

A Utah where the rules governing speech and access are applied consistently, explained plainly, and available to everyone they affect.

How this is built

Entries come from published decisions, orders of the Government Records Office and its predecessor, and filings obtained from the courts or sent to us. Every case links to its primary documents.

This is not a complete record and can't be. A denial is appealable as of right, so appellate decisions are findable. Trial court rulings mostly aren't, and a party who wins doesn't appeal, so the cases least likely to surface are the ones where the statute worked.

Corrections

Corrections are published here with the date and what changed. If something on this site is wrong, tell us and we will fix it in the open.

Disclosure

The author works on First Amendment and public records matters in Utah and has worked with parties in some matters tracked here. Every affected case file carries a disclosure.

Send a case or document

Briefs, orders, transcripts, correspondence. Trial court orders especially, because those are the ones we cannot find on our own. Tell us if you would prefer not to be named and we will not name you.