Cheyenne committee outlines juvenile court ordinance changes emphasizing diversion, confidentiality and expungement

Cheyenne city leaders and local juvenile justice stakeholders on June 26 reviewed proposed changes to municipal juvenile court ordinances that would formalize options intended to divert young people from formal prosecution, protect sensitive hearings and create a process for reviewing juvenile records for expungement.

Judge Ron Jeffrey, who led the city's juvenile court for decades and chaired the ordinance review, told the council the city's juvenile program "was doing things that they're doing now on a regular basis throughout the country" and that the proposed code changes largely codify long-standing, research-informed practices. "One of the great things about growing up in Cheyenne for me was that a lot of things happened here," Jeffrey said. "It was doing things that were best practice driven before we knew what best practice was."

The package presented to the council grew from two committees: a policy group (psychologists, school staff and other youth-service professionals) and a rules committee (attorneys and legal staff) that reviewed whether draft language fits Wyoming statutes and constitutional requirements. Jeffrey said there are four ordinance sections that are either new or substantially changed; the city attorney's office will format the drafts and return them to the committee for final review.

Dan White, who worked on the rules committee, walked the council through the state law framework that shapes what a municipal ordinance can and cannot do. He cited Title 5 (municipal courts) and 5-6-113 as the statutory basis for pre-court diversion, and said Title 14 (the Wyoming Juvenile Justice Act) and constitutional open-courts precedent inform any limits on public access. "5-6-113 pertains to incarceration of juvenile offenders," White said, and that statutory language can support pre-court diversion where officers and local programs provide rehabilitative alternatives rather than immediate prosecution.

White said the ordinance drafts include carefully worded confidentiality and closed-court provisions to avoid violating the Wyoming Constitution's open-courts clause while protecting juvenile proceedings and records. "When the district attorney sends a case to the municipal court, there are restrictions on the number of persons or the types of persons that can be present in the courtroom during that procedure so that it's not generally open to the public," he said.

A key operational proposal is formal recognition of the juvenile services team (previously called the screening committee) as the single point of entry that screens juvenile citations and recommends whether cases go to municipal or district juvenile court and whether diversion is appropriate. Jeffrey explained the team meets weekly and that screening often leads to diversion and graduated sanctions instead of immediate incarceration.

School resource officers and educators who served on the policy committee praised the approach. Officer Fardell, identified as a school resource officer with the Cheyenne Police Department, described the SRO role as threefold: "A properly selected and properly trained SRO is an educator, they're a law enforcement officer, and they're a mentor." He also noted state-level concerns from earlier years about juvenile processing and said Cheyenne's collaborative model aims to avoid unnecessary formal prosecution.

Educators on the panel emphasized restorative practices and access to services. Karen Brooks Lyons, an elementary principal and committee member, said the proposed changes would help ensure juveniles without financial or social connections can clear records: "I like the fact that ... it will be able to be removed without me having the right connection, that I made a mistake," she said.

On expungement, White proposed an automatic review process when former juvenile defendants turn 18 (or within six months thereafter). He said a clerk would send names to the juvenile services team for screening and that a municipal judge would then decide whether to expunge records. White illustrated the stakes with an anecdote about a young woman whose juvenile record had hindered a military recruiter: if expunged, he said, applicants could have greater access to employment or military service.

Council members asked for numbers and operational detail. Jeffrey said he did not have an annual expungement count available at the meeting; he noted the proposal would start prospective review from the ordinance's effective date, not retroactive mass expungement. He also highlighted that a 162-respondent survey of stakeholders and SROs informed the committee's recommendations.

No formal vote was taken at the work session. The city attorney's office will format the proposed ordinances and return drafts to the committee and council for final review before any ordinance adoption process begins.

Closing the session, the chair thanked the task force and adjourned the meeting.