Clerk of District Court

Clerk of District Court between two Democrats

Incumbent Sutton faces challenger Hultman.

By Kate Ready

The League of Women Voters, Teton County Library and local media partners held a primary forum June 23 for the contested Clerk of District Court race. Both candidates, incumbent Anne Comeaux Sutton and attorney hopeful Brian Hultman, fielded questions about why they’re running and how they’d handle the job.

Hultman currently works as a deputy prosecuting attorney in the Teton County and Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

“I want to continue to serve the people of Teton County but in a different way than I have been doing for over 25 years as deputy county attorney,” Hultman said. “Something I bring with me is a great working relationship with the new Judge Owens. We worked together in the Teton County attorney’s office for six years and it is important for the district judge and her clerk to have this type of relationship.”

The incumbent, Sutton, has served as clerk of District Court, since 2015, when previous Clerk Dee Mahoney retired.

“I think [public service] is my calling and I think it’s my strength,” Sutton said. “I’ve been excited to serve, and I have great interest in seeing through all of the great momentum we have going and making sure that the upcoming transitions are just as strong as many of the transitions we’ve made in the past seven and a half years.”

Much of the 25-minute forum, presented via Zoom, centered around the upcoming transition to electronic filing in March. The Wyoming Supreme Court mandated the official court record become the electronic record, a historic move. Since 1923 the official record for Teton County District Court records has been the paper record, with a second electronic record kept optionally.

This transition will occur three months into the newly elected clerk of District Court’s term. Both candidates were asked how they would ease that transition and help the community adapt.

“I’m preparing for that transition as we speak,” Sutton said. “I am a subject matter expert on the [Wyoming Supreme Court’s] committee for full court enterprise implementation in District Courts who’s been regularly consulted about the e-filing transition. As part of that, we just went live on the full court enterprise system in early June. It was extremely successful. I’m working with staff and state leaders and state colleagues to make sure that we really understand what that transition means.”

Sutton also is focusing on how the record is kept for appeals. This transition will impact how the trial court record will be transmitted for review to the Wyoming Supreme Court, as the office is currently sending the paper record.

“I do have some experience with how that will look when it’s not a paper record because we had an old file that was no longer in paper at state archives, so I feel like I’m ready, just as we have been with every other technology transition,” Sutton said. “My team is motivated and dedicated, as am I, and I look forward to it.”

Hultman also shared his excitement to oversee the transition.

“The electronic filing is also something that is of particular interest to me,” Hultman said. “As a lawyer I’ve seen how it works in the Wyoming Supreme Court. I went down there with Erin Weisman, back when she was the state deputy, and I’ve seen how it works, and it worked great in the Supreme Court.”

Sutton and Hultman were asked whether they would advocate for the office to go truly paperless or continue to maintain a paper record, a local choice that’s been left up to District Courts to decide. The District Court office has been maintaining two records since at least 2015, Sutton said.

“I feel that it’s very important,” Hultman said. “In the county attorney’s office we are going paperless. I think that the electronic filing is a great idea, but we have to take it slowly and either have electronic filing and regular filing or just electronic filing of certain items. Especially when you think of divorces or felonies. Those people will want that record there.”

Sutton proposed a potential six-month staging process for phasing out the paper record.

“I certainly will be advocating for an eventual transition to paperless records without maintaining two records,” Sutton said. “But staging for perhaps a six month or if we’re going e-filing March 2023, that we are fully making the change to paperless perhaps January 2024. Again, the official record will be paperless; it will just be a matter of if we have the redundancy of the paper.”

Sutton and Hultman also discussed how they would get their duties as rigid record keepers right.

“I’ll tell you a few of the things we’re doing now that I will anticipate continuing to do,” Sutton said. “First, it’s really strong workflow processes and staff training. We have made lots of updates to how we do that so we can have staff train up more quickly and we’re doing the correct work.”

Sutton also described a quality review process to ensure that public access is upheld in cases where that’s legally entitled.

“I think that [process] is really important because of the complexity of the work,” Sutton said. “It’s not all as linear as you think it might be. … and so we will continue to do the quality assurance measures, the training tools, in the regular review that I participate in to make sure we get it right.”

Hultman agreed with much of what Sutton said.

“In juvenile cases, Title 25 cases, the statutes state what can be seen and what can’t,” Hultman said. “In a divorce case, there’s a financial affidavit that should not be seen by the public. I have just done criminal work, juvenile and Title 25 work, but I will look into that and go from there.”

Since both Hultman and Sutton are affiliated with the Democratic party, they were asked how their ideologies, political or otherwise, would play into their service.

“I believe that it shouldn’t play in at all,” Hultman said. “Once you are elected clerk of District Court, you represent all of the people. I feel very strongly about that. I feel like it shouldn’t be an issue at all.”

Sutton echoed Hultman, while drawing on her personal experience in the role for nearly eight years.

“We talk about this with staff training all the time, our duty and obligation is to be neutral,” Sutton said. “We’re to provide the same access and transparency to all litigants regardless of whether they are the defendant, the prosecuting attorney. ... I think it can’t cross, it doesn’t cross and it hasn’t crossed.”

Sutton also shared a few measures she takes to foster this culture of “Switzerland” neutrality both internally and when working with the public.

“I have a policy among our staff that we don’t talk politics among ourselves,” Sutton said. “I think it gets in the way of us doing our duty. And the other thing is we have a very public office. I want any member of the public to come in and to feel welcome. Staff included.”

The final question of the forum was how the candidates would communicate clearly with the public on things such as legislative statute changes and passport appointments.

“It depends on the circumstance which tool to use,” Sutton said. “Certain matters I’ve put out to local BAR listserv, especially during COVID that affected how folks can file, very occasional paid advertisement in the newspaper, that’s when I think it’s been really critical that the public is aware of very significant passport application changes and we know how much that impacts folks’ travel planning.

“We also regularly update our website with alerts and changing information, and we have had certain press releases go out,” Sutton said. “All of it so far has worked really well, but I’m always open to feedback if folks see a unique need.”

Hultman also shared his approach to keeping the public in the loop on important changes.

“I would think of e-filing, what cases are coming up, passports, deadlines so that they stay in touch with that,” Hultman said. “The newspaper is always a good thing. The nuts and bolts are there, but there are several things we can do to use technology to improve communication.”

Both candidates gave closing statements.

Hultman’s centered around his vision of courtroom access for moot court students.

“I have a vision of high school and middle school students having moot court competitions in the actual courtroom,” Hultman said. “They do this in Cheyenne with great success. Our students can go through mock cases and students will leave this process understanding how it works. I think it has great potential and definitely gets an interest in the law as a profession.”

Sutton circled back to her experience and asked voters for their vote to “keep the momentum going” on important technology transitions.

“What I want folks to take away is a short three months into the next term we’re going to have some major overhauls in the court system, and these overhauls have been planned for quite some time,” Sutton said. “We’re doing work as we speak, making e-filing possible and transitioning to truly paperless records. As the saying goes, the best indicator for future success is past performance. I have a proven track record in this position juggling all of the day-to-day responsibilities and the many technology transitions.”

Anne Sutton

COURTESY PHOTO

Brian Hultman

KATHRYN ZIESIG / NEWS&GUIDE FILE

How to watch online

Thanks to a collaboration between Teton County Library, League of Women Voters, Jackson Hole News & Guide, KHOL 89.1 and Buckrail, you can watch candidate debates free online via YouTube.

All live-streaming links are available at TCLIB.org/candidates.