Rule 113.Access to Proceedings

Rule 113 balances the openness of courts against the privacy of families, and gives the judge broad control over who is in the room.

Open court

All trials on the merits must be conducted in open court and, so far as convenient, in a regular courtroom. Every trial, hearing, judgment and order is deemed to have been done in open court regardless of the place held — so a proceeding conducted somewhere else is not thereby invalid.

Clearing the room

The court may exclude all persons except officers of the court — which may include advocates or other support people — the parties, and attorneys. That list is short, and the express inclusion of advocates matters in domestic violence matters where a victim advocate accompanies a party.

Witnesses may be excluded at a party's request or on the court's own motion so they cannot hear other testimony.

The exception for a child witness

Where the witness is a child, the court may allow parents, a counselor, friend, or other person having a supportive relationship with the child to remain during the child's testimony. The ordinary reason to exclude — keeping a witness from hearing others — gives way to the child's need for a familiar adult.

Rule 117 should be read alongside this: it sharply limits when a child testifies at all, and provides for an in-camera interview instead.

Outside the county, and the minute entry

Any hearing except a trial or evidentiary hearing may be held outside the county where the action was filed or transferred. A trial or evidentiary hearing may be held outside it only by stipulation of the parties.

The clerk must make a minute entry of all court proceedings under the court's direction, filed in the official file.