By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director

A private judge has granted a request from the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition to intervene in a divorce case in which a suppression order makes the entire court file — and the order itself — unavailable to the public.

Former Denver District Court Judge William Meyer of the Judicial Arbiter Group set an Oct. 27 hearing to consider CFOIC’s motion to open the case of Kaufmann v. Kaufmann “with only truly sensitive, private (non-public) information redacted therefrom.”

In a filing submitted to Meyer on Friday, First Amendment attorney and CFOIC president Steve Zansberg quotes a 1994 Colorado Court of Appeals opinion to argue that “in all civil cases, including those involving domestic relations, the public is entitled to inspect and/or copy all records on file with the Court unless and until a judicial finding as been made that ‘the harm to the privacy of a person in interest outweighs the public interest’ in accessing judicial records.”

CFOIC filed the motion in Kaufmann v. Kaufmann last April following a Denver Gazette investigative series which found many similar cases being litigated outside of public view in a special judicial system that is mostly available only to “the rich, famous and well-to-do.”

Private judges hired to handle divorce cases under this system “suppress them from public view at far greater rates than in cases that rely on district court judges, leaving some legal experts wondering whether affluent clients are simply buying their way into secrecy,” Gazette reporter David Migoya wrote in one of the stories.

According to the state judicial department’s Integrated Colorado Courts E-Filing System (ICCES), the entire case file in the divorce involving Steven and Alexis Denny Kaufmann — including all filings by the parties and orders entered by the court — is off-limits to the public. Even the register of actions is suppressed.

Steven Kaufmann, who is a deputy in the Colorado Attorney General’s office, objects to the unsealing of records in his case. “There is no compelling public interest in this dissolution matter,” his attorney argues in a recent court filing. “The potential harm to the parties as it concerns their respective personal and confidential information in the public sphere far outweighs the public’s interest in having access to the file.”

But Alexis Denny Kaufmann did not object to CFOIC’s motion to have the suppression order set aside, asking in a court filing only that her personal medical information be protected “in the least restrictive manner and as supported by law.”

“I cannot seek to hide from public view my own file in a manner different from the transparency for which I have advocated in my professional life and in public service,” she wrote. “I am not aware of any time that I or my counsel asked for the file to be suppressed, or presented any reasons for doing so separate from the protection of my private medical records.” According to her website, Alexis Denny Kaufmann worked for USAID in the Obama administration and is a journalist and media analyst.

CFOIC’s latest filing contends that Steven Kaufmann’s position “is diametrically contrary to how courts in the United States, including Colorado, operate.”

“All proceedings before judicial officers in this country are presumptively open to the public, as are the paper filings therein upon which the exercise of judicial authority is exercised,” it says. “Colorado’s law recognizes this strong presumption of public access, which eliminates any burden on any member of the public from having to show any ‘particular’ or ‘extraordinary’ interest in official judicial proceedings or records.”

Zansberg notes in the filing that Steven Kaufmann “initiated this judicial proceeding in the Denver District Court, rather than opting for alternative means of dispute resolution,” such as arbitration, that are secret. He included exhibits showing public listings for multiple other divorce cases in Denver District Court.

“It is practically inconceivable that Petitioner could demonstrate that the Register of Actions or any of the Orders (including the Final Order) this Court has entered should be completely suppressed from public view,” Zansberg wrote. “Colorado law declares, unambiguously that ‘The … register of actions shall be open at all times during office hours for the inspection of the public without charge …”

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